I’m in an Armenian trench in the Askeran sector less than 200m from the Azeri front line. It feels as if I’ve gone back to the first world war —there are sandbags, a little wood-burning stove for winter and a few rusty tin cans strung up to warn of intruders at night. The three soldiers on duty, all 20, are from Yerevan, Armenia’s capital. Their commanding officer says the front is relatively quiet today, although the soldiers warn, as I look through a slit in the concrete: “Don’t look for more than 15 seconds. After that, get your head down.”

“Yesterday the enemy violated the ceasefire 18 times, and we did once,” said Lieutenant-General Movses Hakobian, Nagorno-Karabakh’s defence minister. “Anywhere along the 300km front line, as soon as a head pops up, they may shoot. We’re at war every day.” Exchanges of fire killed eight in two days in June. The lines haven’t shifted since the most recent ceasefire signed in Moscow on 16 May 1994. That year, the Azeri authorities agreed to a cessation of hostilities to avoid a rout. The Armenians had seized control of the former autonomous region of Nagorno-Karabakh and large adjacent territories, 13% of the former Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan’s territory. Since then, soldiers have dug in, sometimes less than 100m apart, and spied on each other. Skirmishes flare up according to the schedule of international conferences. They have become more frequent recently, after Russia organised summits between the Armenian and Azeri presidents. Armenia’s alliance with Russia, and the close links between Turkic-speaking Azerbaijan and Turkey, have the potential to turn this into a major international flashpoint.

There have been three wars between the mountain-dwelling Armenians and the “Tatars” of the valleys, now known as the Azeris, in 1905, 1918 and 1991-94. Unhappy at having been ruled from Baku (Azerbaijan) since 1921 after a Bolshevik decision, the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh were the first to push against the USSR in 1988. A wave of nationalism then swept the Baltic states, followed ultimately by the break-up of the Soviet Union. Though Nagorno-Karabakh is little bigger than Luxembourg, it worries Washington and Moscow. At the last G20 meeting in Mexico in June, Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin and François Hollande made clear their powerlessness when they said that “the parties to the conflict should not further delay making the important decisions necessary to reach a lasting and peaceful settlement.” The US, Russia and France are co-chairs of the Minsk Group, which was given the task of finding a solution in 1992.

While waiting for an invitation to the negotiating table, Karabakh’s military have been making themselves visible. In May, the capital Stepanakert (Khankendi to the Azeris) hosted an impressive parade to celebrate the capture of the former Azeri miltary stronghold of Shusha, (Shushi to the Armenians) in May 1992, which had let the rebels take control of the Lachin corridor (Berdzor to the Armenians), linking Karabakh to Armenia. In the minds of many Armenians around the world, this victory over the Azeris, who are conflated with the “Turks”, is their revenge on history.

Opting for independence

Having initially asked to join the former Soviet Republic of Armenia, the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh opted instead for independence in 1991. This allowed them to present the conflict as a struggle for national liberation rather than a territorial quarrel between countries. This tiny self-styled republic of 140,000 people, which no country has officially recognised, has its own constitution, parliament, flag, army, institutions and government. But in reality it remains closely linked to Armenia, and Armenia’s capital, Yerevan, is where decisions are taken.

Armenia’s president Serzh Sarkisyan had watched the parade (tanks, drones and the latest generation of missiles) sitting next to Bako Sahakyan, recently re-elected president of Nagorno-Karabakh. The display was meant to make clear that the “mountain people” would never give up their right to self-determination. “We can say that in the past 20 years Nagorno-Karabakh has had many successes in establishing democratic institutions which meet international standards,” said Sahakyan. “Sooner or later, the international community will recognise our independence. We don’t want to revive the bitter period of war. But our priority remains national security. We are ready to defend ourselves, and that includes preventative action.”

Stepanakert has changed a lot since the end of the fighting. Public buildings and modern apartment blocks make this small town of 50,000 inhabitants much more attractive than the industrial cities of post-Soviet Armenia. People out shopping seem at ease, although the town’s main street is only 25km from the front line. Average annual income, at $2,800, is above that of most regions in Armenia. Stepanakert maintains an army of 15,000, pays pensions, builds roads and bridges, covers health and education costs and controls many businesses. Yerevan picks up the bill: two-thirds of the budget is provided by Armenia.

“Azerbaijan has oil. The Armenians have the diaspora,” as the former president of Karabakh, Arkadi Ghukasyan, used to say. A significant proportion of funds sent home by Armenian communities around the world comes here, including half the gifts made by France’s Armenian foundation, according to Michel Tancrez, its representative in Stepanakert: “In 2000, when we ran our first fundraiser, around 15% of French families of Armenian descent were aware of Karabakh. Today everyone is, and around a quarter of people donate.” Like an oil windfall, this generosity has a downside. Journalist Ara K Manoogian regularly exposes waste and excesses (1).

Scars of fighting

Shushi, the historic capital, has a different atmosphere. The restored cathedral is splendid, but most citizens live in crumbling apartment blocks from the Brezhnev era. The town is at an altitude of 300m, but the central heating doesn’t work because of lack of maintenance. People have to use gas or wood stoves with their pipes sticking out of the windows. Many buildings still show scars from the fierce fighting in 1992. Two large mosques and the old bazaar have been left to rot, and Azeri homes destroyed. The population of 10,000, which was mixed before the first world war, became mainly Azeri in the Soviet period. Shushi now has around 3,000 (Armenian) inhabitants, many of whom fled Sumgait near Baku after the ethnic cleansing of February 1988.

Unemployment is high and many of those out of work are war veterans with campaign medals. Laurent Ghumanian said: “At 20, I took an active part in all the fighting. Today I’m 40 and out of work. The feeling of uselessness is hard for my children to bear.” This personal despair has been worsened by “shock therapies” in the countries of the former USSR. “There’s a social iceberg concealed beneath the nationalist rhetoric,” said lawyer Sevag Torossian.

Caucasian relations defy simplification. Christian Armenia is allied militarily with Orthodox Russia and the Muslim Central Asian republics under the Collective Security Treaty Organisation. It has good relations with Shia Iran, which is highly suspicious of Shia Azerbaijan: the Azeris are close to Sunni Turkey and to Christian Georgia, which is in open conflict with Russia.

Iran has enabled Armenia to break the Azeri-Turkish blockade, to import gas and petroleum; it is concerned about Baku’s pronouncements about identity, since 15 million Azeris live in northwest Iran. Above all, the Armenians and Iranians fear closer ties between Israel and Azerbaijan, which led to a $1.5bn arms deal in February (2). Baku is acquiring sophisticated equipment, especially drones, in return for its oil; US officials suspect the Israelis of having “bought” an airbase south of Baku from which they could bomb Iran’s nuclear installations (3). The Armenians fear that such an attack would be the cue for an Azeri offensive against Karabakh.

The war’s human cost

Further west, two transport projects reveal the peculiar situation of this territory, cut off from Armenia by mountains that can only be crossed through 2,300m-high passes. A railway used to link Stepanakert to the plain of Kura, its natural outlet, and travel on to Baku, but all that remains of it is the track bed. Stepanakert airport opened over a year ago, but it is still waiting for its first flights from Yerevan. Azeri forces have vowed to shoot down any planes that show themselves. They don’t want it to be forgotten that in the nearby village of Khojaly, many Azeris were killed during the first major Armenian offensive in 1992.

The human cost of the war has been very high. Over 20,000 died, and many were crippled for life. According to the UNHCR, 570,000 people were internally displaced within Azerbaijan, which also took in 220,000 refugees from Armenia (4). “I’ve visited the refugee camps. I’ve also seen the Palestinian camps, and I have to say the Azeri ones are no better,” said French senator Nathalie Goulet  (5). Armenia took in 300,000 Armenians who used to live in Azerbaijan.

At Agdam, you enter territory that didn’t belong to the former autonomous region: an “occupied” sector. The UN Security Council has been demanding since 1993 “the immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of the occupying forces from the district of Agdam and all other recently occupied areas” (6). This military buffer zone includes dozens of villages and several ghost towns, including Fizuli, Jabrail and Agdam, the former commercial centre of the region. Only a small area of farmland cleared of mines has been reclaimed, mostly for livestock. Tens of thousands of homes and hundreds of apartment blocks have been destroyed or systematically pillaged since the fighting. Furniture, carpentry, roofing, plumbing, electric wiring — everything that can be reused has been stolen, everything else that was combustible has been burnt.

Armenians wanting to occupy the land abandoned by its former residents seek legitimisation in ancient history. Seven kilometres north of Agdam, a major Hellenistic site was discovered, and named Tigranakert. “In 2005 a fox was digging an earth here,” the attendant at the site said. “The hole had uncovered a wall. I showed it to Hamlet Petrosyan, the director of the Institute of Archaeology. They excavated and found the remains of an Armenian basilica from the sixth century.” A large fortified wall from the 1st century AD was also discovered. It is thought to prove the existence of a city founded at the time of Tigran the Great (reigned 95-55 BC), at the zenith of ancient Armenia.

Discussions about respect for Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity run into difficulties over the monasteries, among them the medieval Dadivank, only reachable by a bad road following the Tartar River gorge. It is in the Kalbajar district, administered by Baku until it was conquered by Armenian militia in April 1993.

Strategic military importance

Like the Lachin/Berdzor corridor in the centre, the north road that runs through the Kalbajar district has strategic military importance. The area became crucial to the economy with the opening of the Drmbon mines, near the Sarsang Reservoir, a decade ago, and the Martakert district is full of gold, copper and molybdenum. Base Metals, Nagorno-Karabakh’s biggest employer, has undertaken to rebuild the north road, which will make it possible to transport minerals to Armenian factories in Vardenis, less than 100km away. Construction began last spring.

The announcement of these projects brought protests from Azerbaijan, which feared the status quo would be prolonged indefinitely. Its president, the autocratic Ilham Aliyev, is intent on exploiting the oil windfall to recover territory: “We shall pursue our diplomatic efforts, but at the same time we shall use every opportunity to restore our territorial integrity” (7). Azerbaijan’s military expenditure has increased fivefold since 2004, reaching $3.2bn in 2011, compared to Armenia’s $425m (8). This imbalance alarms the international community; the outline of a genuine agreement, presented in 2007 as the “Madrid Principles”, remains vague. The Minsk Group has the objective of a peaceful solution based on the restitution of all occupied territory and the right of return in exchange for significant local autonomy for Armenians, with a guarantee of security, including a peacekeeping operation and a link corridor with Armenia.

A legal solution will have to take into account geography, not least the Lesser Caucasus mountain range. In the north of the Armenian-controlled zone there are mountains that rise to over 3,000m and cut Nagorno-Karabakh off from the Shahumian region, which is controlled by Baku and has been abandoned by its Armenian population. The Kalbajar district is particularly isolated. The Stepanakert government is encouraging Armenians to move there. Around 15,000 people live in this buffer zone and neighbouring Berdzor/Lachin, while the other territories conquered by Armenia have remained empty.

President Aliyev has accepted the principles of a five-year transitional status for the Kalbajar and Berdzor/Lachin districts, and of a corridor (9). He says he is also ready to grant a degree of independence to the territory, which used to belong to the old autonomous region. But he refuses to budge on territorial integrity and the return of displaced people, including in Shushi/Shusha.

For leaders on both sides, compromise seems difficult since it was the conflict that brought them to power. “In both Azerbaijan and Armenia, the Karabakh question has become the focus of all political and governmental life,” said François Thual (10). “It remains impossible to ignore and is at the root of all internal political tensions.”

Karabakh in control

Since the removal in 1998 of President Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who was accused of having sold out Armenian interests by accepting a gradual solution, political and economic power in Yerevan has been controlled by men from Karabakh. The current president, Serzh Sarkisyan, was defence minister there and knows that the status quo also has a high price for the Armenians. After the failed rapprochement with Turkey, he can no longer hope to lift the blockade and reduce international pressure without addressing the problems of a system that he embodies.

Armenia, a centre of scientific research and industrial power under the Soviet system’s division of labour, has had to bear the 1988 earthquake, war and the collapse of the USSR. While oligarchs flaunt their wealth and show their arrogance in the media they control, most conglomerates have closed for good, more than a third of agricultural land is uncultivated, and the country has been reduced to selling its mining assets to the highest bidder in Russia. In the legislative elections this May, all the candidates took a hawkish line. But many Armenians no longer vote.

Twenty years of independence have also been years of silent tragedy with the great economic exodus. Between 700,000 and 1.3 million Armenians have left the Caucasus since the end of the 1980s (11). Russia has taken in an average of 35,000 each year (12). Armenia’s permanent resident population has been reduced to 2.8 million. A policy of encouraging births has only had a marginal effect on a bleak demographic outlook.

In Yerevan, on a square on General Avenue in the city centre, young activists have been braving the police for months to protest against the privatisation of this public space and the granting of special privileges to traders. They want to publicise the fact that the same thing is happening to public assets across the country, while nationalist rhetoric diverts attention. Armen Rakejian, a young Armenian born in France who has lived in Shusha for eight years, thinks the future depends on the emergence of a civil society, which he is trying to establish at local level. In the short term, he believes that a minimal level of self-belief and trust in others is required: “In my neighbourhood, one family had a son killed by the Azeris a year ago. You can’t explain to that family and their friends that the Azeris are good neighbours we need to make peace with.” Detente has to start at the front line, with its barbed wire: completing the exchanges of prisoners, establishing ceasefire control mechanisms and agreeing to talk outside diplomatic conferences. No more keeping your head down.