By Will Englund, The Washington Post August 11 STEPANAKERT, Nagorno-Karabakh — This is where the first war set off by the Soviet collapse took place. And it may be where the next one breaks out. Twenty years ago, Armenians and Azerbaijanis, unleashed from Soviet control, fought a bitter struggle for this mountainous region in the South Caucasus. A cease-fire was reached in 1994, after about 30,000 people had been killed, leaving Nagorno-Karabakh outside Azerbaijan’s control, as an unrecognized, de facto republic in the hands of ethnic Armenians. Since then, no one on either side has had the will to hammer out a settlement. Tension has been put to use by those in power — in Azerbaijan, in Armenia proper and here in separatist Nagorno-Karabakh. Democracy, human rights, an unfettered press, a genuine opposition: These are the sort of things that get put aside in times of crisis. And here, the crisis has been going on for two decades and shows little sign of letting up. “The development of democracy has fallen hostage to the conflict,” said Masis Mayilian, Nagorno-Karabakh’s former foreign minister and a onetime candidate for president. “This is very handy for totalitarian regimes.” An actual renewal of the war, unless it were very quick, would be a disaster for all concerned. On this they agree. The two sides are much more heavily armed than they were in 1991, especially Azerbaijan. It might be very difficult for Iran, Turkey and Russia to remain uninvolved, and impossible to confine the fighting to Nagorno-Karabakh itself. A major supply route used by the United States to provision troops in Afghanistan would be disrupted. But resistance to a peace settlement along the lines of a proposal sponsored by the United States, France and Russia has been stiff. “We share the wish that there be no war,” said Robert Bradtke, the U.S. diplomat involved in the talks. “But do the parties have the political will?” So far, they don’t. Azerbaijan and Armenia, which negotiates on behalf of Nagorno-Karabakh, both say they support the international effort to find a way toward settling the first post-Soviet conflict. “It is high time to do it,” Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov said recently in Moscow after meeting with his counterpart from Russia, which is especially intent on getting an agreement. But Azerbaijan also says it will never formally surrender territory. And the people of Nagorno-Karabakh say they’ll never give up the right of self-determination. For two decades, both sides have kept passions inflamed, which turns out to be good politics for those at the top. But with snipers shooting at each other every day, and occasionally causing casualties, the chances of stumbling into a war of miscalculation, or a war of hotheadedness, are considerable. Tevan Poghosyan, who in the 1990s represented Karabakh in the United States, and now runs a think tank in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, said war is inevitable. It will take another round of fighting, he said, to “steam” the poison out. ‘We had nothing’ In the Soviet era, boundaries were often drawn with little regard for the huge mix of nationalities that populated the country. Some ethnic groups were split; others were paired with traditionally hostile neighbors. Much of this was done intentionally, as a way of assuring Moscow’s control. As the U.S.S.R. was falling apart, people were quick to take up arms against one another. Difficulties and ill will linger: between Georgians and Abkhazians, between Georgians and Ossetians (who fought a brief renewed war in 2008), between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks, who clashed violently a year ago.

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