KARABAKH: POSSIBLY EXHAUSTED PEACE
ISN
cfm?id=18831
April 7 2008
Switzerland
Azerbaijan changes tactic over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, lashing
out at the Minsk Group and hoping for more pull with the UN, as the
peace process threatens to unwind, Haroutiun Khachatrian reports for
ISN Security Watch.
By Haroutiun Khachatrian in Yerevan for ISN Security Watch (07/04/08)
Recent moves by Azerbaijan to criticize and question the OSCE Minsk
Group, the international mediating force in the Nagorno Karabakh
conflict, have experts and observers concerned that the peace process
may have reached its end along with chances for peaceful resolution.
March 2008 was marked with two events related to the conflict of
Nagorno Karabakh, which were unprecedented for at least a decade.
On 4 March, a military incident took place in one of the fragments
of the contact line between the armed forces of Azerbaijan and
the unrecognized Nagorno Karabakh Republic. It differed from other
incidents in that for the first time in over a decade, heavy weapons
were used and more than 15 people were killed from both sides (with
each side accusing the other of initiating the incident).
The second event, on 14 March, came in the form of a contentious
vote at the UN General Assembly that saw the Assembly call for the
recognition of Azerbaijan’s right to territorial integrity and for
the immediate withdrawal of Armenian forces "from all the occupied
territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan."
Thirty-nine countries supported the Azerbaijani draft resolution,
while seven voted against, including the US, Russia and France,
the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group.
The UN General Assembly vote has indeed set a precedent, as it was
the first time that an international body outside of the OSCE’s Minsk
Group has been involved in the Nagorno Karabakh dispute.
Frozen in bloody time In February 1988, with the rise of Gorbachev’s
glasnost and perestroika, Armenians began demonstrating for the
return of Nagorno Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave that the
Soviet Union had handed over to Azerbaijan in 1923 as an autonomous
oblast within Soviet Azerbaijan. At the time, Nagorno Karabakh was
95 percent ethnic Armenian.
The fallout was devastating, leading to pogroms of Armenians in the
Azeri city of Sumgait and a war that would last until 1994.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, national passions in both
Armenia and Azerbaijan were allowed to surface with all their oppressed
gusto, and the early 1990s proved particularly bloody.
In 1994, the Armenian forces from Armenia proper and ethnic Armenian
forces from Nagorno Karabakh had managed to violently expel the Azeri
Turk minority from Nagorno Karabakh and went as far as to annex parts
of Azerbaijan that bordered the enclave for security reasons.
Today, the de facto independent republic – which was declared
independent after a 1991 referendum but was never recognized, not
even by Armenia – officially remains a part of Azerbaijan, and is
connected to Armenia by the Lachin Corridor, a piece of land the
Armenians forcibly annexed from Azerbaijan in 1992.
International mandate The adoption of the non-binding resolution by
the UN General Assembly was followed by a rather unexpected turn
in Azerbaijan’s policy. Baku officially started an unprecedented
campaign of criticism against the US, Russia and France for their
failure to support Azerbaijan’s position both at the UN and in the
mediation process.
Azerbaijan accused the three superpowers of being "unbalanced" in the
negotiation process. Polad Bul-Bul Ogly, the Azerbaijani ambassador
to Russia, was quoted by the Russian daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta on
25 March as saying that Azerbaijan may seek other mediators to act
along with or instead of the current ones.
The Minsk Group was formed in 1992 by the Council of Security and
Cooperation in Europe (later reorganized as the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE) with the aim of holding a
conference in Minsk to discuss possible political solutions for the
Nagorno Karabakh conflict. The group consists of Armenia, Azerbaijan,
Belarus, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Slovakia,
Sweden, Turkey and the US.
In an interview with ISN Security Watch, Vladimir Kazamirov, the
Russian envoy for the Karabakh issue in 1994-1996, pointed out that
the Minsk Group had no formal mandate other than its members were
obliged to attend the conference.
The CSCE December 1994 summit in Budapest established the institute
of the Minsk Group co-chairmen "to ensure a common and agreed basis
for negotiations," as 12 countries could not act as mediators.
Formally, the co-chairmen are appointed by the CSCE/OSCE
chairman-in-office, but in reality, the chairmanship is given to
specific countries ("co-chairs"), and the latter appoint this or
that diplomat to represent the countries. Initially, there were two
co-chairmen (representatives of Italy, and later Sweden, both with
Russia as the second co-chair).
The current three co-chair countries have not been changed since 1997,
but each country – Russia, France and the US – has changed at least
five diplomats as their representatives. During this time, the three
"superpowers" have managed to act as a single team, presenting the
conflicting parties with the necessary support to reach a consensus.
Until now, these chairs have largely been viewed as objective and
equally representing the quarreling parties.
Baku’s new tactic Armenia, for one, believes that the ultimate goal
of Azerbaijan is to dissolve the Minsk Group.
Azerbaijan is correct in saying that the efforts of the co-chairs
have been so far fruitless, but a new mediator will not likely bring
any positive change.
"After all, the experience the current co-chairs gained in these
years is valuable," Kazamirov said, mentioning that few have a good
knowledge of the Nagorno Karabakh problem, and a new mediator would
face serious difficulties.
Over the course of the past 11 years, the co-chairs presented many
proposals – all of them rejected by at least one party to the conflict.
Armenia (which in recent years has represented both itself and Nagorno
Karabakh at the negotiations) supports the concept that the people
of Nagorno Karabakh have the right of self-determination, based on
the December 1991 referendum. The Armenian parties claim that the
occupied territories around Nagorno Karabakh will be freed and their
former Azeri inhabitants will be allowed to return if the right of
self-determination of Nagorno Karabakh is recognized.
Azerbaijan claims the region to be an inseparable part of its territory
and is offering a high level of autonomy inside Azerbaijan.
The co-chairs were meant to act as neutral brokers. Under the latest
version of the so-called Basic Principles, presented by the mediators
in November 2007 in Madrid, this right to self-determination is
expected to be realized through a form of plebiscite in Nagorno
Karabakh.
However, in recent weeks, Azerbaijan accusations that the Minsk Group
co-chairs are "not neutral" – meaning they do not recognize Nagorno
Karabakh as a part of Azerbaijan, officially – may throw a wrench in
what is already a complicated process.
"Some people in Azerbaijan do not want to negotiate about the
compromise regarding the future status of Nagorno Karabakh. If they
don’t want to negotiate about this point, then there is no sense for
negotiations to be continued at all. You can’t judge the outcome of
the negotiating process until you go to the negotiation," APA agency
quoted US co-chair Matthew Bryza as saying on 27 March.
But perhaps, as pointed out by Robert D Kaplan in his book, Eastward
to Tartary, Azerbaijan knows that its ship has sailed. "The Armenians
[…] were never going to give up Karabakh in negotiations. No one
gives up what has been captured in battle when the area is occupied
overwhelmingly by one’s own ethnic group and the rest of the population
has been violently expelled, with barely a murmur from the Great
Powers or the global media," Kaplan writes.
Azerbaijan’s hardening position The Armenian side believes that there
are two reasons for Azerbaijan’s sudden hardening of its position. The
first reason is the fairly wide international recognition of Kosovo’s
17 February unilateral declaration of independence.
Indeed, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on 4 March overwhelmingly
approved a proposal to recall the country’s Kosovo platoon. At the
same time, Aliyev confirmed that Azerbaijan was still considering a
military option for the settling of the Nagorno Karabakh issue.
The other reason, according to Armenian officials, is the recent
political crisis caused by the 19 February presidential elections,
which created an impression of instability in Armenia. (Serzh Sarkisian
defeated Levon Ter-Petrosyan and protests turned bloody, leaving at
least eight people dead after an unexpectedly violent crackdown by
security forces.)
"Azerbaijan made an attempt to test our toughness. I do doubt that
if they are convinced that Armenia and Karabakh have weakened, they
will again make an attempt to achieve success," Armenian President
Robert Kocharian told a 20 March press conference.
Kocharian warned that if Azerbaijan continued to undermine the
peace process, Armenia may officially recognize the Nagorno Karabakh
Republic to ensure its security. Bryza immediately reacted by calling
on Armenia not to take such a step, according to the 22 March issue
of the New York-based Armenian Reporter newspaper.
The Armenian side says that Azerbaijan’s real aim with its most recent
maneuverings is to halt status negotiations for Nagorno Karabakh.
The mutual trust deficit Kazimirov says the conflict in Karabakh
has several features which increase the risk of stability. First,
there are no separating or peacekeeping forces, and the ceasefire
fully depends on the conflicting parties.
Second, the establishment of the ceasefire was not followed by a
withdrawal of troops to a safe distance, and the positions of the
conflicting parties are sometimes several hundred meters from each
other.
However, the most serious danger is probably the deficit of mutual
trust and war rhetoric.
"In no other conflict in the world can one find such a mood for
a forced revanche that is seen in the case of Karabakh, and it is
declared openly by the top leaders. In no other place can you see
this number of incidents along the contact line as in Karabakh. The
growth of military budgets, especially in Azerbaijan, is also alarming,
as they also can create dangerous illusions," Kazimirov said.
Haroutiun Khachatrian is an editor and an analyst for Noyan Tapan
news agency and editor-in-chief of the Noyan Tapan Highlights weekly.
He is based in Yerevan.