Will Armenian Political Unrest Resolve The Karabakh Conflict?

Besides the political crisis, which saw widespread protests sweeping the streets of Armenia followed by a resignation of prime minister Serzh Sargsyan and government dissolution, there is another crisis that Armenia is involved in.

The Karabakh conflict, which started in the late 1980s and quickly escalated into a full-on war, saw over 20,000 people dead and over 1.5 million forced to flee. And despite the ceasefire agreement in 1994, which made Azerbaijan de-facto lose control over the region (according to the international law it still belongs to Azerbaijan), much of the people in and around Karabakh live in fear of another escalation to this day.

“There were some announcements, declarations made by [Armenian] officials and experts, that it's an opportunity Azerbaijan could use to send its military forces into Karabakh to gain it back,” says Margarita Akhvlediani, the editor-in-chief of the Caucasus news site JAM News. “Because there’s a revolution going on and the Armenian society is divided into two parties that don't trust each other.”

But apart from that, Akhvlediani assures that the unrest in Armenia has little to do with the Karabakh conflict as it’s “definitely not Karabakh that divides people in Armenia.”

“Karabakh is exactly what would immediately unite the opposition, and the government, and any forces in Armenia because, fortunately or unfortunately, the society in Armenia has one opinion on it.”