Narek Sukiasyan
vol. VIII (1)
Pages 90-103
Abstract: The article identifies and examines territorial autonomy and
secession as conflict management strategies applied in Nagorno
Karabakh. It demonstrates that neither of these strategies provided
sustainable peace and indicates some of the underlying causes of this
failure. Through the case of the NKAO, the article challenges the role
of institutional autonomies as an encouraging factor of secession per se.
In our case, the autonomous period indeed prepared the groundwork for
mobilization, albeit for the opposite reason – it did not guarantee the
ethno-territorial rights of the minority. In fact, it caused an increase in
cultural, economic and political discrimination against the local
Armenians. Secession put an end to intercommunal violence, but failed
to establish peace. The secession of Karabakh and the factors leading up
to it provide grounds for qualifying it as a resort to the remedial right,
which has been instrumentalised by present and previous leaders of
Armenia.
Keywords: Nagorno Karabakh, peace and conflict, territorial
autonomy, secession, conflict management
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