THE ELECTIONS IN ARTSAKH AND THE NEW OPPORTUNITIES OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
Monday, 06 August 2012 09:28
Although a little over half a month has already passed since the
date of the presidential elections in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic,
this political event still continues to be in the focus of experts’
attention.
We can state that the recent presidential elections in the NKR,
which were carried out in accordance with the generally accepted
democratic norms and which once again confirmed the viability of
the state institutions of the Republic, created, in certain sense,
a new political situation. We can also state that the elections, the
legitimacy of which was confirmed by over one hundred independent
observers from the European Parliament, 22 countries of Europe and
America, as well as expert organizations, raised fully the issue of
their legal consequences. In other words, the further neglect of the
NKR as an independent sovereign state is simply illogical.
If we follow the comments and evaluations of international observers
and experts, we can see that most of them stated that from the legal
point of view the NKR has the full right to be recognized as an
independent state and to be represented in the negotiation process.
They agree that Nagorno Karabakh is a factor of regional policy
and regional security, the opinion of which should certainly be
considered. Can we suppose that this obvious truth is realized only
by representatives of the expert community expressing surprise
at the non-involvement of Nagorno-Karabakh in the current format
of negotiations, but not the political leaders of influential
international organizations engaged in the settlement of the Karabakh
conflict? Surely, not. I would suggest that the OSCE Minsk Group
and the organizations, dealing with the Karabakh issue, are coming,
if have not already come, to that understanding. Yes, they have not
publicly acknowledged the presidential elections in Nagorno-Karabakh,
but we think this was, on the one hand, a kind of tribute to the
diplomatic ethics, as the negotiations are still underway, and on the
other hand – the result of their being burdened by the geopolitical
interests of the states and structures they represent.
I must say that the talks about the need to return Nagorno-Karabakh
to the negotiation table have been underway for a long time. However,
they have recently re-actualized, which is conditioned, as mentioned
above, by the recent presidential elections in the NKR. It is known
that the OSCE Minsk Group has repeatedly pointed out that the Karabakh
party will join the negotiations at a certain stage. Another thing is
that despite the known resolution of the OSCE Budapest Summit, which
recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as a party to the conflict, they gave
the issue of the NKR involvement in the negotiations at the mercy of
Azerbaijan, which, surely, opposes this. But today, we can state, with
some caution, about certain symptoms of possible change in the position
of the mediators and their attitude to Azerbaijan itself, which behaves
inadequately and ignores the calls of international organizations to
abandon the threat of force for solving the Karabakh issue.
We will not yet make far-reaching conclusions, but lately some
developments have taken place, which seem to indicate that the
behavior of Azerbaijan, which believed in its own permissiveness and
impunity in the aggravation of the situation in the region, begins
to irritate the world centers of power. As you know, the U.S. State
Department has recently deleted Azerbaijan from the list of buyers
of the U.S. military equipment, and less than a month later, on July
23, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, in his report devoted to the
conventional arms control, criticized the Azerbaijani authorities for
unleashing an arms race and for the unrestrained militarization of the
country. Let us not delude in this regard and believe that Azerbaijan
will calm down at once, but we’d like to think that the U.S. and the
UN actions are a warning to official Baku that if it continues its
militaristic policy, it may be followed by tougher sanctions.
And one thing more. Last week, EU High Representative for foreign
policy Catherine Ashton stated that the EU was considering the issue
of unimpeded entry of its Special Representative to Nagorno-Karabakh.
I must say, the EU has long been stating its desire to play a
more active role in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement, but
stipulating that it doesn’t intend to replace the OSCE Minsk Group.
According to Ashton, the EU wants to strengthen the trust between the
people living in the region. It is still difficult to say what specific
goals lie behind this statement, but the fact that the EU Special
Representative dealing with the Karabakh issue will finally visit
Nagorno-Karabakh is important, because he will have an opportunity
to learn about the real situation in the country firsthand.
As it is known, former Special Representative Peter Semneby once
intended to come to Stepanakert, but at the request of his leadership
(or Azerbaijan?) was forced to turn back halfway. Time will
tell whether the European Union has revised its attitude towards
Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan. However, one thing is clear –
to solve even the issue of “confidence-building between people”,
not to mention the conflict settlement itself, the international
mediators cannot do without the participation of the NKR authorities,
which are democratically elected and, thus, are legitimate. And
as one of the observers said at the last presidential election,
international structure will make sure that the best thing is to deal
with democratically elected leadership.
Leonid MARTIROSSIAN
Editor-in-Chief of Azat Artsakh newspaper
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