How water cooperation shows a pathway to sustainable peace in Karabakh
Author: Farid Guliyev
Building peace in post-war Karabakh is no doubt a daunting task. Old wounds and fresh scars of war, the trauma and plight of internally displaced persons — fueled by horrific videos of violence and mass graves — feed into the dominant narratives of ethnic hatred in both societies making reconciliation and peacebuilding difficult to achieve.
Despite these challenges, peacebuilding is both necessary and desirable for both societies to overcome past animosities and build a prosperous economic future. Azerbaijan and Armenia bound by geography to live side by side, and they share a long history of peaceful co-habitation in the past. Both countries also inherited the water management infrastructure (such as water dams, irrigation canals) from Soviet era when the former Nagorno-Karabakh Oblast (NKAO) was embedded within Azerbaijan’s energy grid and water management network. Today, amidst global warming and water scarcity ensuring a secure access to water resources can benefit both communities. Establishing a mechanism for cooperation on water-related issues holds the promise to improve irrigation and access to drinking water for both communities which in turn can spur peacebuilding for a long run.
Before a second war broke out in the late September 2020, Armenia was in control of upstream water dams notably the Sarsang reservoir. At the heart of the problem was that “whereas Armenia normally releases the water from the Sarsang reservoir during winter to generate hydropower, Azerbaijan needs it in summer to irrigate its agricultural lands.”
Built in 1976 on the Tartar River during Soviet times, the Sarsang reservoir fell under Armenian control since the early 1990s. Scholar Makili-Aliyev argues that Armenia “weaponized” the use of Sarsang reservoir — located at the altitude of 726 meters above sea level — by withholding water supply to downstream Tartar and Barda regions of Azerbaijan which are water-scarce areas and where water supply is critical for agricultural irrigation:
“While water of the reservoir came under the control of Armenia it has been letting it flow during winters and this situation lead to serious floods and damage to the agricultural lands, roads and settlements. On the other hand, during summers when water is needed most, the water was held back from downstream.” (Makili-Aliyev 2022)
Informal Agreement and First Visits
In June 2022, an apparent gentlemen’s agreement was reached between Baku and Karabakh Armenian representatives according to which “18,000 cubic meters of water per day” would be released to Azerbaijan.
On August 22, representatives of Azerbaijan’s Amelioration and Water Farm OJSC visited the Sarsang reservoir in what appears to be the first public visit. The inspection was carried out with participation of local Karabakh Armenian experts “on devising a workable water management plan” and is viewed as “the first official manifestation of cooperation between Karabakh Armenians and Azerbaijanis in around three decades”. Cooperation in water management is clearly a win-win situation for both sides.
How resource management can contribute to peace-building
If managed carefully, cooperation in water management has the potential to improve relations between former adversaries in the post-conflict situations. Such grassroots cooperation initiatives can help to tackle negative ethnic stereotypes that each society attributes to the other side and instead to encourage both communities to pursue forward-looking cooperative policies. Solving common problems can contribute to collaboration while interdependence that stems from water collaboration can increase inter-communal linkages and improve mutual trust.
Regular interactions between Azerbaijani and Armenian experts on water-management related issues is a promising step toward lasting peace and restoring trust between Azerbaijan and its ethnic Armenian community. Such collaboration is mutually beneficial. On the one hand, the Sarsang reservoir generates electricity for local Karabakh Armenians. On the other side, the water released from it is an indispensable source of water for water-scarce Azerbaijani communities in the lowlands surrounding Upper Karabakh.
Cooperation on technical issues create interdependence whereas both sides come to realize that gains from collaboration exceed the risks of continued war. In this sense, water for Armenians and Azerbaijan can play the role similar to what coal and steel did for post-war reconciliation between France and West Germany. Cooperation on coal and steel — by establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in the 1950s — paved the way for further European integration.
Of course, cooperation on Sarsang water sharing is a small — albeit important — first step. There are many common problems in transboundary water management — including falling water levels and increasing pollution in the Aras and Kura Rivers. Collaboration on these issues and creating a more comprehensive institutional framework has the potential to address common problems producing a peace dividend. Considering the growing role of the EU in Armenian-Azerbaijani peacebuilding, Brussels is well-positioned to play an important place in facilitating and encouraging the sides to establish a more formal water-related cooperation.
Farid Guliyev, PhD is an independent policy analyst. The views expressed herein are solely the responsibility of the author.
© AzStudies 2022 [Please don’t republish without the author’s permission]
