ARMENIA, AZERBAIJAN SHOULD ‘PREPARE PUBLIC’ FOR PEACE
news.az
Dec 5 2011
Azerbaijan
News.Az interviews Azerbaijani political expert Tabib Huseynov.
Do you share the view that next year~Rs elections in Russia and
Armenia will stop the negotiating process on Karabakh for several
months at least?
Armenia and all three OSCE Minsk Group co-chair countries enter an
election period next year. Certainly, this will significantly restrict
diplomatic activity in the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process.
In Armenia, the parliamentary elections in May next year will be a
litmus test for Serzh Sargsyan’s hold on power and a major rehearsal
ahead of the presidential elections in February 2013. Given his
weak domestic credibility, it is unlikely that Sargsyan will risk
making any bold political moves towards a compromise with Azerbaijan
before the election cycle in Armenia ends and the domestic political
situation stabilizes.
At the same time, presidential elections next year in Russia (in
March), France (in April) and the US (in November) together with the
re-emerging global financial crisis and the ongoing developments in
the Middle East and Arab world risk further distracting international
attention away from the Nagorno-Karabakh problem.
When diplomacy does not work, there is always a greater risk of
escalation. While we should recognize that a breakthrough in the
peace process is unlikely in the coming few months, it is important
that Armenia and Azerbaijan use this time-out in the peace talks not
for further escalation but more actively to prepare their public to
accept a framework agreement on basic principles, which would later
serve as a basis for more in-depth negotiations on a comprehensive
peace agreement.
The Kazan meeting in June failed to bring about an agreement on
basic principles, but at the very least the Armenian and Azerbaijani
presidents underlined in their joint statement the need to create
proper conditions for the approval of the basic principles. And now,
although the negotiation process itself is stalled, both sides
are engaged in active public diplomacy. As you know, there have
recently been some reciprocal high-level visits by Armenian and
Azerbaijani officials to Baku and Yerevan respectively to attend
various multilateral events (usually under the CIS umbrella).
An Armenian team recently competed in the World Boxing Championships in
Baku. Azerbaijan now actively supports people-to-people meetings with
the participation of Karabakh Armenians and Karabakh Azeris. Such a
meeting was scheduled for late November in Berlin, though the Karabakh
Armenians did not turn up. Azerbaijan’s supreme cleric, Allahshukur
Pashazade, visited Yerevan last week following Armenian Catholicos
Garegin II’s visit to Baku last year.
All these activities are aimed at preparing the societies for peace
and they also demonstrate that in spite of the stalled negotiation
process, Azerbaijan shows good will and is interested in using all
opportunities for a peaceful resolution.
But for these confidence-building activities to be sustainable and
effective, it is very important that they serve as building blocks
for a political breakthrough in the peace talks once the election
cycle is over, and are not misused by the Armenian side to gain time
and further entrench the status quo of occupation.
In his address to a recent international conference in Yerevan, Serzh
Sargsyan implied that his country does not sit idly by, watching
Azerbaijan strengthen its military power with oil revenue. Does
this mean that not only do economic accomplishments fail to persuade
Armenia, they also strengthen its resolve to keep Karabakh?
In his speech, Sargsyan simply restated the usual propagandistic
arguments about Azerbaijan’s militarization and its alleged violation
of the CFE Treaty ceilings. But for any informed observer, it is
clear that the level of Armenia’s militarization in per capita terms
is greater than Azerbaijan’s. Moreover, Armenia itself violates the
CFE Treaty by stationing a large part of its troops in Azerbaijan’s
occupied territories, out of bounds of CFE Treaty inspection. Today’s
Armenian-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh was even called by the Crisis
Group the most militarized society in the world. So, such accusatory
rhetoric coming from Yerevan is nothing more than an attempt to
justify Yerevan’s intransigence in the peace talks.
Perhaps, Sargsyan’s speech should also be viewed in the context of
the upcoming elections in Armenia. The Nagorno-Karabakh issue will
feature prominently in these elections and, as was the case before,
both the pro-government and pro-opposition camps will try to use the
issue and present themselves as better at guarding perceived Armenian
national interests on Nagorno-Karabakh. Certainly, there will be
greater temptation to use more hardline rhetoric to manipulate public
sentiments and score extra points in the process.
As I mentioned earlier, even though there is little, if any, chance
of a breakthrough in the talks during the election cycle in Armenia,
this time-out should be used to prepare the societies for peace,
including toning down the rhetoric that comes from both sides. So,
it is a challenge for the Armenian political establishment to remain
cool in their rhetoric towards Azerbaijan and prepare the ground for
a compromise resolution while conducting their election campaign.
It is said that a significant part of the Armenian public favour
peace with Azerbaijan and even the return of the occupied lands for
the sake of stability and well-being. Do these people have any chances
of coming to power? Is it possible to negotiate with Armenia at a time
when people who were directly involved in the occupation of Karabakh
hold power in the country?
Today, unfortunately, there is no major political force in Armenia,
which is ready to accept Armenian withdrawal from the occupied
Azerbaijani territories without making the withdrawal conditional on
the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh or its unification with Armenia.
Even the major opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosyan can hardly be
called a “dove”, and in fact has actively obstructed the peace process
by airing exaggerated accusations of Sargsyan’s imminent “sell-out”
of Karabakh and frightening the Armenian public with an alleged
“Dayton scenario” in the peace process.
The political dividends Ter-Petrosyan gained from such scare-tactics
were questionable, but their negative effect was obvious. A more
hardline view, supported by the Dashnaks, the Heritage Party and
the like rejects withdrawal from any of the occupied territories,
arguing that land acquired by blood cannot be given back.
The moderate voices in Armenia are largely marginalized. The
persecution of an Armenian civil and human rights activist Georgi
Vanyan, who is one of the few people in Armenia to courageously
speak against the Armenian occupation of Azerbaijani territories,
is a case in point. He and members of his team were denied a venue,
insulted and threatened with physical violence only because they wanted
to organize a screening of several Azerbaijani films in Yerevan and
called the event “Azerbaijani Film Festival in Armenia”.
Ironically, peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan will be made, if
at all, not between the moderates, but between pragmatic political
forces. After all, the security and well-being of both the Armenian
and Azerbaijani peoples depend on their finding a common language
and modus vivendi in the South Caucasus.
Recalling EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton~Rs recent visit
to the region, I have to ask: is the European Union sincere in its
statements that it is ready to help Baku and Yerevan negotiate?
The unresolved nature of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict represents a
danger for EU interests in the region. A new war would create huge
instability near the EU’s eastern borders, with huge humanitarian and
political consequences spreading beyond the boundaries of the South
Caucasus. It would also put at risk energy projects running from
the Caspian to the EU, thus seriously undermining the EU’s efforts
to diversify its energy supply routes. So, the EU is genuine in its
interest in making a positive contribute to the resolution of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
But the EU does not yet have a clear strategy on the unresolved
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Neither do Armenia and Azerbaijan have a
consensus over the nature of its possible involvement. Since the EU is
not a mediator, its role in the official peace process is limited. The
EU supports a number of projects aimed at building confidence between
Armenians and Azeris.
I think that as long as there is no political agreement over
Nagorno-Karabakh the EU role will be limited. But once there is an
agreement, the EU will be widely viewed as one of the most preferred
guarantors, which could send peace-keepers and offer a major financial
plan for rehabilitation of the conflict zone.
Meanwhile, before that scenario comes to fruition, the EU should
increase its political support for the ongoing peace process by being
more vocal on the unacceptability of the status quo of occupation and
the need to come to an agreement on the basic principles. It should
also increase its support for Track Two efforts aimed at building
peace constituencies in Armenian and Azerbaijani society.