news.az, Azerbaijan
Aug 13 2011
‘Karabakh agreement to mask disagreement on other issues’
Sat 13 August 2011 06:56 GMT | 2:56 Local Time
News.Az interviews Laurence Broers, Caucasus Programme Projects
Manager, Conciliation Resources.
How did the Russian-Georgian war influence the Karabakh settlement?
Russian-Georgian confrontation obviously had a negative effect for the
South Caucasus as a whole, reinforcing the image of this region as an
unstable and unpredictable conflict zone. But there may be some
indirect benefits for the Karabakh peace process, should people choose
to see them. First, while Russia’s efforts to increase its profile as
a positive mediator in the Karabakh dispute are to be welcomed, the
unfortunate lack of tangible results to come out of the Moscow
Declaration and what has been called the ‘Medvedev moment’ in Kazan
are a reminder that no single outside power can impose a settlement.
The change that we need to see to take the Karabakh peace process
forward has to come from within, with outside support – and not the
other way round. Second, the war in and around South Ossetia
highlighted the cost to both Armenians and Azeris of even (relatively)
minor transport and transit disruptions. Imagine the impact renewed
Armenian-Azerbaijani war would have.
Third, with Georgia’s peace processes effectively stalled for the
foreseeable future, the August war has also motivated greater interest
and made more resources available for international engagement on
Karabakh. Although this revived international interest in what was a
forgotten peace process is welcome, it also needs careful coordination
and management. Finally, the five-day war underlined the point that
violence cannot resolve the South Caucasus conflicts. A new status quo
can be imposed by force, but everyone affected by the Karabakh
conflict knows, status quo is not the same as peace.
Do you think that Russia after war with Georgia could really help to
settle the Karabakh conflict?
Russia’s capacities, influence and interests in Armenian-Azerbaijani
relations are qualitatively different from those in Georgian affairs.
Although it is difficult to imagine a viable settlement to the
Karabakh conflict that Russia does not agree with, Moscow has fewer
options to impose its own choice of status quo or indeed to force a
settlement. Russia has a vital and positive role to play in
underpinning and supporting any eventual resolution of the Karabakh
conflict.
In this context, the reported personal rapport between President
Medvedev and Presidents Aliyev and Sarkisian is significant, and
President Medvedev can still play an important convening and
supporting role. But Russian influence is not enough to overcome the
much deeper problems and dysfunctions in the Karabakh conflict, as
Kazan has shown. What is much more important is the strategies that
Azerbaijani and Armenian authorities adopt towards the peace process,
and towards situating the Karabakh conflict in their relationships
with their own societies.
Do you see differences in public and authorities’ attitude to the
Karabakh problem?
There is a long-standing stereotype in the Karabakh peace process that
the `presidents are ahead of their peoples’. According to this
stereotype, the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan would have come
to a settlement long ago if only their societies were not so radical.
But the presidents in neither country have engaged their societies in
an honest debate about the possibilities for settlement. Karabakh is
the joker in the pack for the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan,
the one issue that they really cannot control or predict.
Their attitude is to contain this issue as much as they can, to
monopolize it and to define the boundaries of what can be said about
it. This plays out differently in Armenian and Azerbaijani societies,
because one side is more or less happy with the status quo and the
other is not. In Armenian societies there is less pressure to
criticize the authorities’ handling of the issue. In Azerbaijan, as
the party less satisfied with the status quo, there is more pressure.
But even if we think that societal and authorities’ attitudes on the
Karabakh problem are more or less compatible, there are many other
issues where state and society clearly do not agree. If they do not
agree on fundamental issues like governance, human rights, political
participation and so on, then of course, they will not be able to
agree on a process to address the Karabakh problem. `Agreement’ on
Karabakh can mask disagreement on other issues of equal importance.
Are you sure that Armenians are ready to live in peace with Azeries?
This is surely a two-way question: are Armenians and Azeris ready to
live in peace with each other? In the current climate, in which there
is practically no Armenian-Azeri contact and a lot of negative
propaganda and stereotyping circulating within each society, it’s
difficult to talk about readiness to live in peace. Is either side
ready, for example, to accept returnees from the other side? Can
Azeris be expected to accept people they know only as “Armenian
aggressors”? Can Karabakh Armenians be expected to be ready to accept
Azeris when they are increasingly educated to believe that occupied
territories are ‘liberated territories’? I do not think any of the
societies involved are ready for this at this point.
This issue is part of the broader question of whether either side is
ready to acknowledge the grievance and loss of the other. It’s only
when Armenians and Azeris can share a common understanding of their
history, and of their future together, that they will be ready to live
in peace. In all cases, a deep transformation of all the societies is
needed before this can happen. The Turkish-Armenian relationship
offers some pointers here, as in that situation free people-to-people
contacts have kept an idea alive when the formal diplomatic process
has collapsed. The Turkish-Armenian experience also underlines the
long-term nature of this process.
Azerbaijan’s spiritual leader, Sheikh Allashukur Pashazade has
received an invitation to visit Armenia in November to attend a CIS
Inter-Religious Council meeting. As you know Armenian spiritual leader
Garegin II visited Baku last year. Do you think that A.Pashazade will
visit Yerevan?
I hope he will. And if he does, I hope that this will become a step in
a process to normalize such visits. When such visits happen in a
one-off or occasional way, they can be damaging because of high
expectations and media hype. Such visits need to become part of the
repertoire of how Armenian and Azerbaijani societies can reconnect
despite all the difficulties. Armenian and Azerbaijani authorities
could go further down this path to begin a process of cooperation and
mutual consultation on the preservation of cultural heritage.
The intermingled nature of Armenian and Azerbaijani populations prior
to the conflict means that each side is in control of cultural and
religious monuments of special significance to the other. Just as
churches formerly frequented by Armenians stand empty in Azerbaijan,
mosques formerly frequented by Azerbaijanis stand empty in Nagorny
Karabakh. There have been regular mutual recriminations over the
alleged effacement of cultural heritage, made worse by the lack of
access and information. When restoration of monuments does take place,
it creates fears that the `national character’ of such monuments is
being deliberately diluted or worse. Reciprocal moves to share the
future of cultural heritage, or indeed unilateral gestures of
goodwill, could ease these tensions. These do not need to be
wide-ranging in order to be significant at this point.
Just allowing the other side visiting rights and a say in how heritage
is curated is enough to begin a meaningful dialogue. The Catholicos of
All Armenians Garegin II and Sheikh ul-Islam Allahshukur Pashazade
could promote and provide leadership for this kind of initiative, as
well as providing the vital message to the outside world that the
Karabakh conflict is not about religion.
What kind of role may such kind of visits play in the Karabakh settlement?
The massive highs and lows of expectation and disappointment in the
Minsk Group-mediated negotiations could be lessened by a steady
process of contact between Armenian and Azerbaijani societies. The
eventual outcome of the Karabakh peace process will need reserves of
mutual confidence and renewed trust. Cross-conflict visits can begin
this process now, by reducing misperception and misinformation and
allowing Armenians and Azeris to renew their relationships as
individuals. For Armenians, better acquaintance with Azerbaijan means
better acquaintance with an adversary and neighbor undergoing
far-reaching social change. No one is clear, as yet, where this change
is taking Azerbaijani society, but it would be foolish to ignore the
development that is taking place.
For Azerbaijanis, civil society-level visits can open a necessary,
alternative path to Baku’s official definition of the conflict as an
inter-state conflict with Armenia. One way or another, Baku needs to
find a way to talk to the population living in Nagorny Karabakh today,
which it claims as its own. There is a clear contradiction between
seeking to reincorporate this population and discouraging the free
movement of Armenians to Azerbaijan. Opening up the peace process to
allow for reciprocal visits can begin to address these problems.
There is a long-standing tendency for Armenians and Azeris to
prioritize communication with outside powers over communication with
each other. But what do Armenians and Azeris have to lose by talking
to each other? And will they ever be ready to live in peace if they
don’t?
F.H.
News.Az
From: A. Papazian