EURASIANET/ USA
Peter Leonard, Joshua Kucera
2020 was a historic year in the Caucasus, as Azerbaijan launched a war and successfully took back most of the territory it lost to Armenians in the 1990s. It was an epochal event, ushering in a new political and geopolitical order in the region. In 2021, we’ll begin to see how this new order forms
By far the murkiest prospects for 2021 belong to Armenia. The coming year will be pivotal politically: It will be a miracle if Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan holds his post following the loss to Azerbaijan, but his departure would usher in an era of uncertainty. If Pashinyan goes, will the values of the 2018 Velvet Revolution he led – stamping out corruption and democratizing Armenia – remain? Expect 2021 to be full of political turmoil.
These are uncertain times, too, for the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh. As a result of the war, the territory they hold is much smaller than before, and the Azerbaijanis much closer. For now, Russian peacekeepers are maintaining security, but will Armenians continue to see life in Karabakh as a long-term prospect? Or will they see their days in Karabakh numbered and have one eye on the door? Ultimately people will be voting with their feet and their drams, and in 2021 we should get an idea of how viable Karabakh will remain.
Azerbaijan is riding high after its victory in the war. Now, it faces a daunting task to reconstruct and repopulate the territories it took back from Armenians. It will have to do that with a state budget already under strain from persistently low oil prices, and with state institutions rife with corruption. But military victory has gained President Ilham Aliyev political capital that won’t run out any time soon.
Triumphalism is rampant, and Baku is showing ever fewer signs of accommodating anything other than its strongest nationalist impulses. But it also claims to want to welcome the Armenians of Karabakh as Azerbaijani citizens. So will it take any steps in 2021 to make them feel at home? Serious steps could be a real prosecution of soldiers accused of committing atrocious war crimes and a stepping back from promoting the crackpot “Albanian” theory by which Baku attempts to erase Armenia’s history in the region. No one is holding their breath for any of this to happen, but it’s essential if the region is ever to live in peace.
Georgia has been overshadowed by the dramatic events to its south, but things here, too, are at a crossroads. Following contested elections, all opposition parties are boycotting parliament, leaving Georgia with its first single-party rule since the Soviet days. Faith in the country’s political class had been low before and it’s not clear how it’s going to extract itself from this dead end.
Meanwhile, perhaps no country in the Caucasus is hoping so hard for a quick end to the COVID-19 pandemic. Georgia’s economy is heavily tourism-dependent and the 2020 season was a complete bust. Georgia’s guides, Airbnb hosts, and restauranteurs – at least those still in business – are desperately hoping that things get back to normal in time to revive the industry this year.