CIA: Gorbachev’s wrong policy led to Karabakh conflict

By Azernews

By Rashid Shirinov

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, one of the most brutal conflicts to result from the imploding Soviet Union with an estimated 20,000 Azerbaijanis, mostly civilians, killed and hundreds of thousands displaced before a ceasefire took hold, is a result of wrong policy of General Secretary of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev.

The document RDP91B00776R000600150001 that has been declassified by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) named Gorbachev as the main culprit of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, Trend reports.

The document, dated July 25, 1988, reads that the continuing unrest in the Caucasus is the most extreme example of the nationality tensions.

“Moscow's initial failure to discourage Armenian aspirations led Arme­nian nationalists to press their demands; its subsequent hard line — by dashing heightened expectations — radicalized the movement,” the document said. “Widespread civil disobedience erupted, with control over the protests passing into the hands of more outspoken and uncompromising protest organizers,” the document reads.

“Gorbachev’s policy - glasnost (openness) has led to an expanded discussion by minorities of legal, economic, and cultural rights, as well as a greater public discourse on the past "wrongs" perpetrated against them.”

Gorbachev has now had time to see the aggressively independent form nationalistic aspirations have taken; while he did not want to crush the spirit of these movements, he could not be confident of the regime's ability to control their direction, the document said.

The CIA states that Moscow also appears to be groping toward a long-term plan that just might prove acceptable to both sides.

“This would be some new administrative arrangement whereby Nagorno-Karabakh is not transferred to Armenia but is given some degree of genuine autonomy in Azerbaijan, perhaps accompanied by some measures to give national groups living outside their national "homelands" expanded cultural and economic rights,” the document said.

It read that a major problem Gorbachev faced was that working out the details of this plan might take some time — requiring endorsement by a Central Committee plenum and probably approval of constitutional amendments by the Supreme Soviet.

“With passions at fever pitch, it has been difficult to sell the plan even to those concerned parties who would in calmer times be amenable to compromise,” the document said.

Armenia broke out a lengthy war against Azerbaijan laying territorial claims on its South Caucasus neighbor. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.