BAKU/YEREVAN

Tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan have reached a new boiling point after another mine explosion in areas formerly occupied by Armenia killed three Azerbaijanis, including two journalists, on Friday.

It’s been over half a year since Baku reversed 30 years of humiliation and drove Armenian forces from districts it had occupied since 1993-1994. The areas were ethnically cleansed of more than 600,000 Azerbaijanis and systematically looted until Azerbaijan overwhelmed Armenian positions late last year.

But the tremendous number of landmines and unexploded bombs in the areas – let alone the fact that entire towns and villages were dismantled brick by brick – renders them uninhabitable.

BAKU ENRAGED

Baku is livid about what it says is Armenia’s refusal to hand over maps of mined areas or even discuss the issue.

“I am blaming the international community and organisations,” Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev said. “Months have already passed [since the Armenian defeat and withdrawal] and we still cannot get maps of mined areas.”

The two journalists – both worked for state news outlets – and a government official were killed when their bus-like vehicle hit an anti-tank mine in the largely deserted Kalbajar district, leaving the vehicle in shreds.

Jeyhun Bayramov, Azerbaijan’s foreign minister, said he was “deeply saddened” as he called on Armenia to hand over maps locating mined areas.

The incident brought the death toll among Azerbaijanis to at least 25, with more than 100 injured, since the active part of the war ended with a Russian-brokered truce last November.

Halo Trust, the British de-mining NGO, has emphasised there is little real conception of the scale of the problem of both anti-personnel mines and anti-tank mines, let alone left-over munitions hazards or booby-traps.

It has particularly cited a lack of cooperation from Armenian officials and their separatist proxies in what is left of Azerbaijan’s former Soviet Nagorno-Karabakh district as an impediment to progress.

Yerevan officials have at times responded by accusing the humanitarian organisation Halo Trust of being “spies”.

HASTY RETREAT LEAVES QUESTIONS

Azerbaijani units pounded Armenian positions for 44 days, aided by sophisticated “suicide drones” that decimated old-style Armenian trench positions.

At least 6,000 soldiers combined from both sides were killed, though the true toll is likely higher as many are still reported as missing.

Armenian officials have not made any statements about the mine issue.

There was no commentary from Yerevan or in the Armenian press on the latest incident or even before it.

MINES MAKE DE-OCCUPIED REGIONS UNINHABITABLE

Experts say it could take as many as 10-15 years to clear most of formerly occupied areas free of mines and other munitions and therefore inhabitable.

Aside from more typical mined areas, many booby-trapped areas have been discovered – hidden in the ruins of looted buildings and even trees.

Mine and military experts generally agree that areas occupied since 1993-1994 near front lines were likely well documented as to mined areas.

The same experts say it is unclear if any maps or records were kept in the latter part of the long war, when there was increasing disorganisation in Armenia, especially during the final days, when it was forced to retreat.

Whatever the case, the silence from Yerevan – which has not commented on the issue in even informal ways – could serve to discredit Yerevan as uncooperative and vengeful.

Azerbaijani officials say that they were over-generous in giving the Armenians two to three weeks to leave the occupied districts – allowing them to engage in a “scorched earth” campaign, including laying mines or traps as they hastily retreated.

ARMENIA SEEMS TO LINK MINE ISSUE WITH ALLEGED PRISONERS

Armenia – without saying it – seems to be linking its cooperation on the issue with what it says is the fact that Baku continues to hold POWs.

Azerbaijan says it has returned all POWs. It says others in its custody were detained after the deadline for the last Armenian troops to leave and were members of sabotage groups.

As such, it says, they are being held under criminal charges, since under international law they are not prisoners of war because they were rounded up after open hostilities were concluded by the agreement.

POLITICAL CRISIS IN ARMENIA COMPLICATES MATTERS

Complicating matters, Armenia has been in a state of political chaos since the formal end of hostilities.

Now-acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan faces a snap election in two weeks. As late as a month ago he held a huge lead. But recent polls – if they are to be trusted at all — show him slipping.

In addition, the country’s foreign minister quit last week as did his chief deputy.

There is also ongoing tension between Pashinyan and the country’s titular president, Armen Sargsyan. Though he holds little real power, Sargsyan does have allies in the country’s old guard.

Those allies include ex-President Robert Kocharyan, himself from the former Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh district. The same polls show the 67-year-old moving up.

Kocharyan, who was out of politics until even three months ago, suddenly appears flush with cash and is opening campaign offices across the country in advance of the June 20 poll.

Pashinyan’s detractors have also in recent days suddenly taken to shouting epithets at him, including that he is a “Turk”. A local mayor on Saturday also railed that the country had to get rid of “this Turkish government”.

Kocharyan once had Pashinyan imprisoned for his role in protests over 2008 elections which were largely regarded as falsified in favour of a Kocharyan protégé.

At least eight people were killed and dozens injured after Kocharyan dispatched tanks and regular army units to crush a month of protests.

His supporters blame Pashinyan for the war losses.

Pashinyan says emphatically the country had no choice but to sue for peace and no prospect of holding the occupied Azerbaijani lands.

INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE

Following the death of three on Friday, international organisations, including the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), called for urgent de-mining efforts. The OSCE led an unsuccessful 30-year mediating effort to solve the conflict.

But aside from condolences and a general statement about the need to clear mined areas, it offered nothing concrete.

Azerbaijan’s Aliyev has frequently lambasted the OSCE’s “Minsk Group” mediating format set up in 1992 as ineffectual.

Especially following the cessation of open hostilities, Aliyev has questioned openly what exactly the “mediating” format’s purpose is and even why it still exists, given the three-decade lack of results. The effort is co-chaired by representatives of Russia, the U.S., and France, all with differing interests, and this hampered the format.

Azerbaijan built a formidable army over the 30 years of the eventually fruitless OSCE-led talks.

The U.S., evidently worried about new instability, dispatched a senior State Department envoy to the region over the weekend.

At the same time, Azerbaijan’s Aliyev held a phone conversation with the President of the European Council, Charles Michel. An Azerbaijan government statement said the Baku leader emphasized the border between the two countries needed to be officially marked and respected at once.

POSSIBLE REPERCUSSIONS

Despite bravado from Yerevan or some political types there about avenging losses, it has not received much if anything in support from its technical ally-cum mediator, Russia.

Moscow obviously wants no part of an open conflict with Azerbaijan’s ally Turkey.

No realistic analysts, therefore, see any possibility of reversing Azerbaijan’s victory.

But little in the way of progress on other issues has gone well since.

“SEVERE RESPONSE” PREDICTED

Azerbaijan did leave a small part of the former Soviet Azerbaijani district of Nagorno-Karabakh in the hands of a largely crippled separatist administration.

Baku was evidently satisfied that it posed little threat, especially since Russian peacekeepers and military observers from ally Turkey are on the ground.

“There will be a response and likely a very harsh one,” said one Baku analyst with knowledge of government inner workings.

But little progress has followed and efforts to delimit the border between the two countries have bogged down in details. Armenia over the weekend officially called off any more talks.

It says Azerbaijan detained workers attempting to demarcate the border between the two countries, while Azerbaijan says the personnel were part of a sabotage group.

Though Armenia was forced from the now-de-occupied territories and lost key parts of the former Nagorno-Karabakh district, the area is still populated by an estimated 40,000 – at most – ethnic Armenians.

They rely on a road that crosses Azerbaijan territory for their connection to Armenia itself.

Baku could retaliate over the landmine issue by closing the road, effectively cutting off the area completely, though they might face opposition from Russian peacekeepers.

The two sides are also at loggerheads over a transport link between the Azerbaijan exclave of Nakhchivan and the rest of the country. Nakhchivan, which borders Iran, Turkey, and Armenia, has been cut off since 1993 except by air, from the rest of Azerbaijan.

Armenia – and Pashinyan – has said it never agreed on the corridor, though at least partly this seems part of a pre-election strategy to look tough. It now says the route would compromise its sovereignty, while Baku says Russian peacekeepers would simply ensure the safety of movement through the isolated 40-km strip of land.