Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: There are signs that the current escalation between Armenia and Azerbaijan, far from being incidental to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, is driven by Russia’s and Iran’s economic warfare against a competing state and the need to return Europe to dependency on their oil and gas in light of US sanctions. Armenia benefits from the bellicose activity thanks to a sophisticated information warfare campaign in a heated US election year that has been unmatched thus far by Azerbaijan. But Baku can still turn its underdog position around by pursuing an assertive and affirmative policy against aggressors on military, political, media, and legal fronts.

After Armenia’s attack on Azerbaijan’s borders on July 12, a flurry of speculative articles appeared that contained obvious disinformation intended to portray what had happened as either a continuation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, an extension of Armenian-Turkish tensions, or part of a larger proxy conflict between Turkey and Russia, which is present in Syria and Libya and has most recently divided NATO.

At first glance, the chain of events that led to the current conflict seems straightforward. Armenia attacked Azerbaijani positions without warning, putting at risk civilians residing in the Tovuz area. At least 11 members of the military and one elderly civilian were killed.

Armenia then proceeded to boast about having taken out a general for the first time ever while simultaneously claiming it had been provoked. Several other senior Azerbaijani officers were also killed, which points to a premeditated attack, not an act of spontaneous violence. Indeed, this development calls into question the narrative that the current escalation is just the latest in a series of skirmishes arising from Armenia’s illegal occupation of 20% of Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized territory.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has become a protracted crisis due to a combination of ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijanis from both Armenia and the occupied territories, the turning of over a million Azerbaijanis into refugees and IDPs, the turning of Armenia into a virtually monoethnic state, and the destruction of cultural heritage.

The last major escalation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict took place in 2016, when Azerbaijan reclaimed the strategic village of Çocuq Mərcanlı. As residents of the liberated village and elsewhere along the ceasefire line can attest, unprovoked violations are a part of daily life. Armenian snipers targeting civilians have wounded or killed many and forced many others to vacate their houses.

But this most recent attack was not launched from the occupied region, but rather along the international border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, in close proximity to geopolitically essential oil pipelines.

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