Azernews.Az

By Orkhan Amashov

The idea of tying the Lachin Corridor up with the overland passage connecting Azerbaijan’s main part with its Nakchivan exclave predates the Second Karabakh War. Back then, the proposition was that “the territorial status of the former Nagorno-Karabakh” and the route linking that with Armenia and what was later became to be known as the Zangazur Corridor form a web of interdependence, which Baku and Yerevan could utilise as a quid-pro-quo arrangement in order to achieve long-term peace.

Some elements of this finely balanced knife-edge arrangement are still present in today’s Azerbaijani-Armenian discourse, with one massive exception being that the discussions over the territorial status of Karabakh’s Armenian-populated section have already been shelved. Now, it is about the comparison of the legal regimes of the two corridors and Azerbaijan’s insistence that they should be connected. Armenia naturally begs to differ, claiming that the 10 November 2020 trilateral declaration contains a mention of one corridor, and that the Lachin route’s regime is unique and cannot be replicated anywhere in the southern portion of its territory.

Beyond the exact details pertaining to the legal regime of the Lachin Corridor, both Baku and Yerevan also differ regarding its long-term function. In Azerbaijan, it is viewed as an interim design which, once the relations between the two countries are normalised, may even lose its presently exclusive status. In fact, through maintaining carefully calculated steps and a watchful eye on the future, Baku has already managed to incrementally reduce any dormant extraterritoriality that might have been engrained in its nature.

Article 6 of the trilateral declaration states that the Russian peacekeeping contingent shall remain in the control of the 5km-wide corridor, with Azerbaijan guaranteeing the safety of citizens, goods and vehicles travelling in both directions. Given that Yerevan's original design was to utilise the whole Lachin district as a corridor, its width subsequently being considerably reduced with the Armenian side being deprived of controlling the route, it was an ideal arrangement for Azerbaijan back in 2020.

The 10 November deal also envisaged the construction of a new route, which is now operational, along the Lachin Corridor. Unlike the old route, this is not commensurate with the power lines connecting Karabakh with Armenia. This also played an integral role in dismantling the corridor’s old logic, which was based on severing the ties between the mountainous part of Karabakh and the rest of Azerbaijan, ensuring that all of its basic needs were met by Yerevan. It is not a coincidence that, in the official parlance of Azerbaijan, upon the resumption of control over the city of Lachin on 26 August, the term “new Lachin road” has predominantly superseded utilisation of "the Lachin Corridor".

The fundamental point is that the link connecting Karabakh with Armenia should no longer be viewed as that which Yerevan consistently portrayed to be a so-called “escape route” in the case of an emergency and a safety guarantee, but as a simple communication passage facilitating movement. In view of Baku’s policy of integrating Karabakh Armenians into a wider rainbow of Azerbaijani society with fully-fledged citizenship rights, the route’s exclusivity is being incrementally emaciated.

In an interesting twist, Baku, despite the presence of the Russian peacekeeping contingent along the Lachin Corridor, has never complained of extraterritoriality and maintained that its sovereignty is not encumbered and, in fact, claimed to also maintain control over that passage. Armenia has stubbornly refused to accept what it called the “corridor” logic of the Zangazur passage, in view of Article 9, which mandates that the Border Guard Service of the Russian Federal Security Service should provide security along its length.

Moscow’s role is of some delicacy. Over the Zangazur Corridor, it superficially appears to be supportive of Baku to a measured extent. But, since Russia is interested in maintaining its peacekeeping contingent in Karabakh beyond 2025, Baku’s drive for the full integration of the region’s Armenians into the remainder of Azerbaijan is something that the Kremlin may consider too precipitous and undesirable.

Azerbaijan and Armenia expressed their mutual commitment to recognise each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty in Prague on 6 October, simultaneously, yet indirectly, expressing their willingness that the vision of extraterritoriality enjoyed by one state at the expense of the factual limitation of another will not be pursued by either. This, of course, necessitates a slight overstretching of what could be meant by the recognition of another state’s territorial integrity. The Brussels track in the negotiations has achieved some progress over the regime applicable to the Zangazur Corridor, on the basis that each state must control its borders and exercise due jurisdiction over the section of the route traversing its territory. The critical remaining aspect remains that the connection must be as unobstructed and unimpeded as possible.

Azerbaijan, by linking the regime of the Zangazur Corridor with that of the Lachin Corridor, gradually depriving the latter of its original privileged status, has significantly entrenched its own territorial integrity over the past few years. Any change to the post-2020 regime of the corridor connecting Armenia with Karabakh will require some Russian cooperation in the form of acquiescence, at the very least. If Azerbaijan and Armenia agree over the Zangazur project, with its concomitant consequences for the Lachin route, Russia may find itself compelled to retrench.