Can the pain and destruction, the losses and gains from the recently reignited war over Nagorno-Karabakh be turned into peace?
While the world was fixated on the outcome of the U.S. elections and the ongoing drama of whether U.S. President Donald Trump would concede to President-elect Joe Biden, Russia appears to have achieved the near-impossible by arranging for a ceasefire between Azerbaijan and Armenia. The Kremlin has satisfied Azerbaijani leaders in Baku and their backers in the Turkish capital Ankara, though at the expense of Armenian leaders in Yerevan. The pattern echoes the Treaty of Kars signed almost a century ago, when Soviet Russia in 1921 compelled Armenia to cede territory to Turkey in Eastern Anatolia; this time, Armenia was forced to do the same, to the benefit of Azerbaijan in Karabakh.
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