20130904analyst.pdf

By Bakhtiyar Aslanov ( the 04/09/2013 issue of the CACI Analyst)

The Sarsang water reservoir is one of the highest reservoirs supplying Azerbaijan with water and is located in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, controlled by Armenia. It is located at an altitude of 726 meters above sea level with a dike of 125 meters and a capacity to hold 560 million cubic meters of water. The reservoir was built in 1976 on the Tartar River and extends across 14.2 square kilometers in the area of Aghdere. Sarsang is said to provide 40-60 percent of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic’s electric energy and is operated by the Artsakh HEK OJSC electric company. It has the capacity to provide irrigation water for 100,000 hectares of agricultural land in six rayons in Azerbaijan, Tartar, Agdam, Barda, Goranboy, Yevlakh and Aghjabadi. 

by Stephen Blank (06/26/2013 issue of the CACI Analyst)

At the recent G-8 summit the three members of the Minsk Group, Russia, the U.S., and France, issued a statement calling on Azerbaijan and Armenia to move forward on this issue. Yet, the leaders of the Minsk Group largely repeated what they have done for years; they punted, took refuge in meaningless, high-flown, and contradictory rhetoric, and blamed everything on Baku and Yerevan. Although the two sides are not without blame, as suggested by the tense situation in Nagorno-Karabakh with periodic episodes of one or another side creating incidents that could escalate into outright conflict as well as Armenian and Azerbaijani policy, the refusal of the Minsk Group to act only ensures the continuation of this spiral.