Forgotten land could decide Turkey-Armenia peace

AGDAM, Azerbaijan (Reuters) - Brief snatches of color -- a washing line, a passing car -- break up the mass of rubble that was Agdam.

A handful of Armenians live off scrap metal and pipes plundered from the ruins of this Azeri town, razed in 1993 as Christian Armenian forces in the mountain region of Nagorno-Karabakh fought to split from Muslim Azerbaijan.

Largely forgotten by the outside world since, the remote territory is now the center of diplomatic attention because it could torpedo a fragile peace deal between historic enemies Armenia and Turkey.

Diplomats and analysts say it is on the ghostly remains of Agdam and other Azeri towns held by Armenian forces that stability in the wider South Caucasus region -- a key transit route for non-Arab oil and gas to the West -- depends.

International mediators and Turkey want the Armenians to return many of their conquests to Azerbaijan. Turkey has said that its peace agreement with Armenia cannot advance unless this happens.

The conquered territories run across seven Azeri districts in a long strip of land connecting Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh, and the Armenians are in no mood to give them up.

"It was free land," said Gena, an Armenian who grazes cows on a former Azeri town now returning to nature. "This land was hard to conquer. To give it back is easier, but unfair."

The war killed 30,000 people and displaced 1 million. A ceasefire was agreed in 1994 and Nagorno-Karabakh declared itself independent. But no country recognized it and the specter of fresh conflict is never far away.

"Nagorno-Karabakh was the first (Armenian) military victory in 2,000 years. It's awfully hard psychologically to climb down from that," said Richard Giragosian, the American head of the Armenian Center for National and International Studies.

Diplomats say that under peace principles being negotiated by Armenia and Azerbaijan, at least five of the districts would return, in exchange for greater international legitimacy for Nagorno-Karabakh and a future popular vote to decide its status.

A trio of U.S., French and Russian mediators say they are closer to a deal than ever before.

But years of official secrecy surrounding the talks, and zero Western engagement on the ground, has seen sentiments harden in Nagorno-Karabakh. Its leaders are barred from direct participation in the negotiations due to Azeri opposition.

"They (Azeris) should understand that this is all Armenian land," said Luda Airapetyan, a 59-year-old Armenian and former school teacher in the Nagorno-Karabakh town of Shusha, 15 km (9 miles) from the breakaway capital Stepanakert.

"We took those lands with blood and we must keep them."

Shusha is a shadow of the 19th century town once among the greatest in the Caucasus. During the 1990s war, Azeris used its 700-meter (2,290 ft) height advantage over Stepanakert to pound the Armenian stronghold, before Shusha also fell.

SNIPERS, MINEFIELDS