NAGORNO-KARABAKH AND KOSOVO
EX-COMMUNIST EUROPE
d-kosovo
Dec 28th 2011
Eastern approaches
EARLIER this year Vasily Atajanyan, the acting foreign minister of
Nagorno-Karabakh, told me that his “country” would recognise Kosovo
if the former Yugoslav province reciprocated. I conveyed this message
to Enver Hoxhaj, Kosovo’s foreign minister. He declined to take up
his counterpart’s offer, but thought long and hard about how to do
so politely.
This little episode speaks volumes for realpolitik in international
relations, especially when it comes to small countries.
In Soviet times Nagorno-Karabakh was a mostly Armenian-populated
autonomous region in Azerbaijan. In Yugoslav times Kosovo was a mostly
Albanian-populated autonomous province of Serbia.
Armenians fought a war against the Azeris in the early 1990s, and
the Kosovo Albanians against the Serbs in 1998-99. Nagorno-Karabakh
declared independence in 1991. Serbia’s administration and security
forces were expelled from Kosovo by NATO in 1999. The region was then
run by the United Nations. It declared independence in 2008.
On the face of it there are plenty of similarities between Soviet
breakaway statelets like Nagorno-Karabakh and Kosovo. But there are
also many differences. No countries have recognised Nagorno-Karabakh
as an independent state, but more than 80 have recognised Kosovo.
Western countries emphasise that they believe that the Kosovo case
is not a precedent for others.
In Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, this argument cuts
no ice. Indeed, some have a clear case of “recognition envy”. Marcel
Petrosian, a foreign-ministry official, says that Nagorno-Karabakh has
“stronger arguments” for independence than Kosovo does.
European and other countries that recognise Kosovo are, he says,
practising “double standards.” Mr Atajanyan echoes this. “We see
Kosovo as a precedent,” he says. “It is a vivid example of how
conflicts like ours can be solved.”
The two conflicts see Armenians and Kosovars arguing in favour of
a people’s right to self-determination, and Serbia and Azerbaijan
defending the the right of a state to defend its territorial integrity.
There are inconsistencies everywhere you look. Russia, an ally of
Serbia, does not acknowledge the independence of Kosovo. But, unlike
any Western countries, it recognised the breakaway states of Abkhazia
and South Ossetia following its war with Georgia in 2008. Serbia
might like to make common cause with Georgia but does not wish to
irritate Russia. Likewise Georgia won’t work with Serbia because of
the potential damage to relations with the United States.
Likewise, the Armenians have been forced to fashion shrewd
arguments for not recognising Kosovo’s independence in order not to
antagonise their Russian patrons. Armenia has not in fact recognised
Nagorno-Karabakh, as it reminds American diplomats when they come
calling asking for it to recognise Kosovo.
Serbia and Armenia may be on different sides when it comes to
territorial integrity. But they have much in common, too. Both are
ageing nations with falling populations. Both talk of their respective
enemies in the same terms, fearing the respective facts that both
Kosovo Albanians and Azeris are young and Muslim, and dominate areas
which they consider theirs by historic right.
Hayk Khanumyan, an Armenian journalist and civil-society activist,
employs a novel argument. Kosovo, he says, is an “historic region
of Serbia” that Albanians have taken. (Albanians, needless to say,
would disagree with this analysis.) But the real comparison is between
Kosovo and Nakichevan, a large Azeri exclave separated from Azerbaijan
proper by Armenian territory.
Nakichevan, says Mr Khanumyan, was once Armenian. It was lost to the
Azeris as Kosovo was lost to Albanians. Nagorno-Karabakh, by contrast,
has not been lost and must be defended.
Back to Mr Hoxhaj. His message to Mr Atajanyan is that Kosovo can
only have formal relations with members of the UN, even though Kosovo
itself has not yet joined. “We understand the aspirations of others
but we have to be careful,” he adds. “We can’t shape the destiny of
other small nations but we have to protect what we have and sometimes
doing nothing is better than making a mistake.”
In other words, just as the Armenians sympathise with the Kosovars
but don’t want to annoy the Russians, the Kosovars don’t want to
irk their Western backers. Such are the basics of diplomacy in the
twilight zone of international relations, in which small states and
nations must manoeuvre to secure their best interests.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2011/12/nagorno-karabakh-an