The Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict, two years after.

Two years after an intense conflict between the Armenians and Azari’s, the situation seems to take a slight right with Turkey willing to open trade routes with the Armenians. Turkey, which was a close ally to Azerbaijan during the conflict, seems to change their stance after the two years of the pandemic, which saw the inflation rate of the country jump nearly to 40%, with a few remote areas of the country recording an inflation rate up to 49%.

Things don’t look great for the Armenians either. The country is land-locked from three sides, with Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey sharing a significant border. Two out of 3 countries are currently in conflict with Armenia. The war in 2020 saw Armenia lose control over Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan, which has been conflicted ever since Mr. Stalin created a border between the nations.
In 1993, after a long conflict, Armenian forces captured Nagorno-Karabakh and seven other neighboring regions, which forced turkey to close the borders with Armenia in solitary support with Azerbaijan. However, the Azerbaijanian forces backed by turkey recaptured the territories two years back. Currently, the whole region has Russian soldiers who, in a way, are peacekeeping for the neighbors.

Now, after two years of tense conflict, which saw the fight go beyond the border and spill over to social media, things seem to look easing a bit. But then again, hard nationalists will always bring up the Armenian genocide at the hands of the ottomans during the end of the 19th century.

Opening the borders and trade routes between the two countries seem to be the only solution, which makes sense as both the countries suffer after the pandemic. With Turkey registering a growth rate of -3.41% and Armenia at -7.57% in 2020, the conflict seems to take a step back. At least for now.