‘Bracing for conflict’: Armenians fear Azerbaijani land claims

VOSKEPAR: Peering through the window at a bustling crowd outside the Voskepar village council in northeastern Armenia, mayor Ishkhan Aghbalyan said locals are on edge over arch-foe Azerbaijan’s claims to their lands.

The small village’s residents are gathering daily to share their fears since Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signalled in March his readiness to make territorial concessions to Baku to put some momentum into stalled peace talks.

Voskepar could end up isolated from the rest of the country and some houses could fall into territory controlled by mortal enemy Azerbaijan, as many Armenians view their Caucasus neighbour.

“Folks here are worried that we might lose our territory to Azerbaijan and our security concerns will not get sorted if that happens,” said Aghbalyan.

One of the men in the crowd, 38-year-old Edgar Grigoryan said: “Voskepar men are getting together to talk about the land that might end up going to Azerbaijan. Our security is on the line here.”

“If the Azerbaijanis roll in, our little village will be stranded, cut off from Yerevan, stuck in some kind of blockade,” he added.

‘Cede what is not ours’

Last autumn, Azerbaijani troops recaptured the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from Armenian separatists in a lightning offensive that effectively ended a bloody three-decade standoff between the Caucasus neighbours over control of the mountainous region.

While both Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev say a wider peace agreement is within their reach, lingering territorial disputes pose a constant threat of renewed war.

Baku has claims over eight villages held by Armenia — four along their border and four more in exclaves deeper in Armenian territory.

It is also demanding the creation of a land corridor through Armenia’s southern Syunik region, along the border with Iran, to connect the mainland to the Nakhichevan exclave and onwards to close ally Turkey.

Yerevan, in turn, points to its own exclave in Azerbaijan and pockets of land Baku has seized over the last three years, outside of Karabakh.

Pashinyan has signalled a willingness to agree to Baku’s demand for the unilateral return of four frontier villages — with the remaining territorial disputes to be addressed at border delimitation talks.

“To get what legitimately belongs to Armenia, we must be ready to cede what is not legitimately ours,” he said during his visit to Voskepar in mid-March. “Our policy is to prevent a war.”