From Great Return to Durable Reintegration: A Policy Framework for Post-Conflict Karabakh

Executive summary

The core challenge facing Azerbaijan in its recovered territories is transitioning from a militarised, state-centric reconstruction project to a politically and economically sustainable process of reintegration. This paper proposes a comprehensive policy framework centred on a tripartite and sequential strategy: “First, Make Safe,” “Second, Make Alive,” and “Third, Make Permanent.” It advocates for an internationally supervised de-mining and safe land release programme decoupled from political timelines; a transformative economic policy anchored by a special economic zone for smallholders and service enterprises, not just capital-intensive industry; and a political strategy that actively separates the civilian return process from the military strategic equation by embedding it within a nascent but credible peace process. The paper concludes that only by pursuing a demilitarised, livelihood-focused reintegration model, fundamentally distinct from the symbolic resettlement of the past, can Azerbaijan secure a true and lasting victory.

Introduction

The ceasefire of November 2020 left Azerbaijan with control over a devastated but strategically vital territory, and a population of internally displaced persons (IDPs) whose right to return is enshrined in national consciousness and international law (President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, 2020). The initial phase of the “Great Return,” as analysed in the preceding diagnostic assessment, reveals a high-risk trajectory. The prioritisation of symbolic capital-intensive construction over the foundational prerequisites of safety, economic viability, and political resolution threatens to produce a hollow, subsidised, and ultimately unsustainable resettlement. This is a model of reconquest, not reintegration.

This paper offers a counter-framework. It argues that the objective must be reformulated from the “Great Return” of a population to the “Durable Reintegration” of a landscape, an economy, and a society. This requires a radical re-sequencing of priorities, moving from a state-led physical build to a security and governance led organic growth model. The framework is built on three sequential but overlapping pillars: a de-mining and safety programme that makes land genuinely available for livelihoods; an economic policy that fosters bottom-up entrepreneurship; and a political strategy that anchors the return within a credible peace process to remove the premium on permanent militarisation. Each pillar contains actionable policy recommendations directed at the Government of Azerbaijan, with roles for international partners and the private sector.

Pillar I: First, Make Safe. A Livelihoods-First De-mining Compact

The current de-mining challenge is framed as a technical problem to clear land for state-planned construction. The solution is to recast de-mining as the primary instrument of economic and social rehabilitation. We propose a “Livelihoods-First De-mining Compact,” a multi-donor trust fund and technical partnership structured around a single metric: safe agricultural and commercial land released per capita of returned IDP.

The operational mechanism is as follows. The Azerbaijani government, in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and specialised organisations like the HALO Trust, would create a transparent land classification and tasking matrix. This matrix would not prioritise land for symbolic “smart villages” but would systematically survey, categorise, and release land based on its economic potential for returnee communities. The first priority would be clearing agricultural corridors, irrigation channels, and pastureland identified in consultation with IDP community leaders from each district. The second priority would be clearing transport routes connecting these agricultural zones to regional markets in Barda, Ganja, and beyond.

Crucially, this compact would decouple de-mining from a rigid political timetable. Azerbaijan would commit to a multi-year, internationally verified plan, demonstrating that its commitment to return is a commitment to life and livelihood, not a race for a photo opportunity. The international donor community, in turn, would provide substantial and predictable funding, not as humanitarian aid, but as a direct investment in conflict prevention and regional stability (GICHD, 2020). Success is defined not by square metres of cleared land in a press release, but by the tonnage of the first post-war harvest in Aghdam sold on the open market by a returning farmer.

Pillar II: Second, Make Alive. The East Zangezur and Karabakh Entrepreneurial Zone

Physical reconstruction is necessary but creates an economic illusion unless it generates a self-sustaining economic metabolism. We propose the establishment of the “East Zangezur and Karabakh Entrepreneurial Zone” (EKEZ), a unique economic space whose incentive structure is inverted to favour small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and agricultural cooperatives, rather than large extractive or state-owned entities.

The EKEZ would operate with a three-tier incentive system. The first tier is a complete tax holiday for the first seven years for any returnee-owned micro-enterprise or agricultural cooperative that employs local labour. The second tier is a zero-rate import tariff and VAT exemption on all agricultural machinery, construction materials, and technology inputs for businesses physically located and operated within the zone. The third tier is a state-backed microfinance and insurance mechanism. Instead of large commercial banks being the sole channel, this mechanism would partner with Azerbaijani fintech companies and international development finance institutions to provide small, rapidly disbursed, unsecured loans for working capital, paired with a parametric agricultural insurance scheme to de-risk farming in the initially uncertain climate (World Bank, 2019).

The state’s role shifts from sole builder to primary enabler. The government’s crucial infrastructure investment in roads, broadband internet, and a reliable power grid becomes the platform on which thousands of individual economic decisions can be made. This model turns the returnee from a passive beneficiary into an active, wealth-building stakeholder, grounding the population in a network of economic relationships and sunk costs that makes exit a last resort, not a first option. A grocery store owner in Shusha or a wheat farmer in Fuzuli with a loan to repay and a growing customer base is the most durable anchor for peace (Collier and Sambanis, 2005).

Pillar III: Third, Make Permanent. A Reintegration Track within the Peace Process

The final pillar is the most sensitive and the most critical. The return process must be politically disaggregated from military consolidation. As long as the Great Return is perceived as a demographic weapon to secure a military corridor, it will be a target and a deterrent to broad-based investment. We propose a “Civilian Return and Reintegration Track” formally placed within a broader, internationally facilitated peace process between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

This track would have a specific, limited, and transformative mandate: to negotiate and oversee the civilian, non-military aspects of return and reconstruction in ways that build confidence and establish facts of a peaceful future. Its actions would include several key initiatives. First, it would establish a joint technical working group on environmental and cultural heritage protection in the returned territories, a practical starting point for shared stewardship over non-political space (ICOMOS, 2020). Second, it would sponsor an internationally monitored registry of property claims and compensation, a mechanism that simultaneously formalises Azerbaijani restitution while acknowledging the loss of the displaced, allowing a future discussion on remedies that does not start from a position of total mutual denial (Leckie and Huggins, 2011). Third, and most ambitiously, it would hold negotiations on a “Peaceful Intercommunity Corridor” between the western districts of Azerbaijan and southern Armenia. These talks would strictly exclude military dimensions and focus solely on the civilian protocol for the eventual, regulated movement of people, goods, and services, should a peace agreement be reached (Council of the European Union, 2021).

This approach serves Azerbaijan’s core strategic interest. By proactively placing its return programme within a peace framework, it transforms its international image from that of a unilateral conqueror to a state committed to a regional order. It demonstrates to international investors that the EKEZ is not a high-risk frontier market but a zone embedded in a predictable, rule-based regional settlement. It creates a political horizon, however distant, that justifies the immense sacrifices of return by promising that the children of these returnees will not grow up to fight another war over the same land (Lederach, 1997).

Conclusion

The 2021 choice for Azerbaijan is stark. One path continues the post-war trajectory of a state-led, symbolic, and securitised Great Return, a path that builds houses on unmined economic ground and in a climate of frozen hostility. The other path, laid out in this paper, is the more arduous route of durable reintegration: meticulously making land safe for livelihoods, creating an economic environment where small businesses can root a community, and, critically, using the return process itself as a bridge, not a barricade, in a nascent peace process. The first path leads to Potemkin villages subsidised by volatile oil revenues, permanently garrisoned and geopolitically fragile. The second path, by making safety, life, and permanence its guiding principles, offers the only true restoration: a return to a living, working, and peaceful society. The ultimate victory is not the flag planted on a hill, but the farmer who chooses to plow the field beneath it.

References

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Council of the European Union (2021) Council Conclusions on a Renewed Partnership with the Southern Neighbourhood: A New Agenda for the Mediterranean, 16 April. Brussels: Council of the European Union.

GICHD (2020) Mine Action and the Sustainable Development Goals. Geneva: Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining.

ICOMOS (2020) Cultural Heritage and Post-Conflict Recovery. Paris: International Council on Monuments and Sites.

Leckie, S. and Huggins, C. (eds) (2011) Conflict and Housing, Land and Property Rights: A Handbook on Issues, Frameworks, and Solutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lederach, J. P. (1997) Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press.

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan (2020) ‘Statement by the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia and President of the Russian Federation’, 10 November. Available at: https://president.az (Accessed: 11 November 2020).

World Bank (2019) Enabling the Business of Agriculture 2019. Washington, DC: World Bank Group