News - Thomas de Waal: Karabakh Armenians are facing slow-motion removal from their homeland

Karabakh Armenians face a very uncertain future in Azerbaijan. UK journalist Thomas de Waal, who is also a senior fellow with Carnegie Europe specializing in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus region as well as an expert on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, told this to The Guardian. “A ceasefire is positive, obviously, if it lasts, as the threat of mass bloodshed will be averted,” he wrote in an email. “What we are seeing here is the intervention of Russia on behalf of Azerbaijan to keep its peacekeeping force in Karabakh at least for the time being and thereby a foothold in the South Caucasus.” "The main losers are the Karabakh Armenians who have lost their 35-year-old struggle for self-determination or secession from Azerbaijan. They now lose any means of self-defence and face a very uncertain future in Azerbaijan. The Karabakhis may have avoided complete destruction but they are more likely facing a slow-motion removal from their homeland, as Azerbaijan is not offering them any autonomy or special political rights,” de Waal added. The other losers, he said, “are the European Union and the United States, which have tried hard to be mediators in this conflict but whose message of rights and international guarantees is being drowned out by the tougher messages of Azerbaijan and Russia.”