Nagorno-Karabakh: OSCE To Unveil New Peace Plan
By Liz Fuller

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
Friday, 08 April 2005

8 April 2005 — The foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan,
Vartan Oskanian and Elmar Mammadyarov, will meet in London on 15
April to discuss new proposals drafted by the OSCE Minsk Group for
resolving the Karabakh conflict, a Moscow correspondent for RFE/RL’s
Armenian Service reported on 5 April quoting Yurii Merzlyakov, the
Russian Minsk Group Co-chairman. Merzlyakov did not give details
of the new peace plan, other than to warn that it will require
mutual concessions from both sides. Armenian Defense Minister Serzh
Sarkisian warned last week that “painful” concessions are unavoidable
(see “RFE/RL Newsline,” 31 March 2005). The London talks will also
determine whether Armenian President Robert Kocharian will meet with
his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliev in Moscow next month on the
sidelines of a Council of Europe summit in Warsaw.

Two trends in recent weeks had seemed to call into question the
prospects for further progress towards a peaceful solution of
the Karabakh conflict. In late February, Oskanian fell ill with
pneumonia, and was unable to travel to Prague for a further round of
talks with his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov (see “RFE/RL
Newsline,” 2 March 2005). Oskanian had hinted at the beginning of a
“new phase” in the conflict settlement process following his previous
meeting with Mammadyarov in January (see “RFE/RL Caucasus Report,”
21 January 2005). But the Minsk Group’s failure to reschedule the
Prague meeting fuelled speculation that unanticipated obstacles to
the peace process had emerged.

Second, a considerable number of minor violations of the ceasefire
agreement signed 11 years ago have been registered in recent weeks on
the Line of Contact separating Armenian and Azerbaijani forces. At
least six servicemen have reportedly been killed in those exchanges
of fire (see “RFE/RL Newsline,” 23 March 2005). Several Armenian
politicians have construed that escalation of low-level hostilities,
which Oskanian said on 29 March is the result of Azerbaijani efforts to
move their front line closer to Armenian positions, as evidence that
Azerbaijan is preparing for a major new offensive — an assumption
that is corroborated by the militant rhetoric of Azerbaijani President
Aliev and Defense Minister Colonel General Safar Abiev. Oskanian
initially told journalists on 23 March he thinks such rhetoric is
intended for a domestic audience, Noyan Tapan reported. But one week
later, addressing the Armenian parliament, he admitted the possibility
that Baku may seriously intend to start military actions (see “RFE/RL
Newsline,” 30 March 2005).

It is not clear whether, as Oskanian and defense officials from the
unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) have claimed, Azerbaijan
was indeed the aggressor during the recent spate of shootings along
the Line of Contact. But it is not beyond the realm of possibility
that Baku was prepared to risk provoking such limited exchanges of
fire and blaming them on the Armenian side in order to deflect public
attention from the recent report released by the OSCE Minsk Group on
the situation in the seven districts adjacent to the NKR which are
under Armenian control. That report, presented to the OSCE’s Permanent
Council in Vienna last month, effectively demolishes Azerbaijani
allegations that the Armenian government has over the past decade
engaged in a deliberate and systematic attempt to resettle tens of
thousands of Armenians on those territories. An OSCE fact-finding
mission that toured the districts in question in late January and
early February at the request of the Azerbaijani government concluded
that resettlement is “quite limited,” strictly voluntary, and not the
result of a deliberate Armenian government policy, and that most of
the Armenians resettlers involved are displaced persons from other
regions of Azerbaijan. It estimated the total number of such Armenian
settlers as less than 15,000, in contrast to Azerbaijani projections
of over 30,000 (see “RFE/RL Newsline,” 18 March 2005).

Despite the recent ceasefire violations, both Oskanian and Mammadyarov
remain publicly committed to the search for new blueprints for
resolving the conflict — even though their respective priorities may
be difficult to reconcile. On 29 March, Oskanian addressed a special
two-day session of the Armenian parliament devoted to the conflict
settlement process. As the only senior official in either country
who has been actively engaged in that process since the early 1990s,
Oskanian provided an overview of the OSCE’s efforts to resolve the
conflict, which he subdivided into four stages. Oskanian reiterated
the three principles which Yerevan considers central to any formal
solution: that the unrecognized NKR not be vertically subordinated to
the Azerbaijani central government (which would rule out autonomous
status, but not a joint or federal state); that the NKR should have
an overland link with Armenia (which would entail de facto recognition
of Armenian control over the so-called Lachin corridor); and that the
security of the Armenian population of the NKR should be guaranteed.

At the same time, Oskanian made some statements that are in
all likelihood unpalatable, if not anathema, to Baku. He argued
that the international community should abandon its insistence
that the principle of territorial integrity, which Azerbaijan
consistently adduces as central to any settlement of the conflict,
should not automatically take precedence over the right to national
self-determination. In that context, he cited the examples of East
Timor and the ongoing discussion over the future status of Kosova,
independence for which could set a precedent for Karabakh. He
substantiated the argument in favor of self-determination for the
NKR by pointing out, as he has done on previous occasions, that the
region has never been part of an independent Azerbaijani state; that
it seceded legally from Azerbaijan (in a referendum in September 1991)
in accordance with the Soviet legislation in force at that time; and
that the Azerbaijani government has had no control whatsoever over the
region for the past 15 years, during which time democratization has
made far deeper inroads in Karabakh than in Azerbaijan itself. Finally,
he argued that by perpetrating violence against the Armenians of
the Nagorno-Karabakh when the region was still formally a part of
Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan “lost the moral right” to hegemony over them.

Mammadyarov, too, has new suggestions to air at his next meeting with
Oskanian, according to OSCE Chairman in Office Dmitrij Rupel, who met
with Armenian leaders in Yerevan on 30 March and in Baku with President
Aliev and Mammadyarov two days later. Also during his talks with Rupel,
Mammadyarov signaled a softening of Azerbaijan’s position on one key
issue: he admitted that “sooner or later” the Armenian community of
the NKR should join in the Armenian-Azerbaijani talks on resolving the
conflict because “we cannot take any steps without them,” according
to the independent ANS television station. But Mammadyarov added,
“We think we should continue the talks with Yerevan and achieve
some results.” Previously Baku has ruled out the participation of
the NKR in such talks unless the Azerbaijanis who fled the enclave
in the late 1980s are also included.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress