The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh is not over

The last all-out war between Armenia and Azerbaijan ended officially on November 10, 2020, meaning it has almost been a year since the last shots were fired. However, with the end of the war came very little reconciliation. Both countries have accused each other of committing war crimes, and have waged a diplomatic war against each other that has, as it did previously, pulled other players into the equation. On occasion, the words of the highest diplomats sound promising, not least when Azerbaijan’s deputy foreign minister Elnur Mammadov told Al Jazeera this month that the conflict should be put behind, since both nations just cannot stay in a state of war indefinitely. Incidentally in the same month, Mammadov told the International Criminal Court (ICJ) in The Hague that Armenia was involved in "decadeslong ethnic cleansing".

The ICJ case is emblematic for the complicated nature of the conflict. Armenia has sued Azerbaijan for violating the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Azerbaijan, in turn, filed a suit against Armenia for violating the exact same treaty.