MG MEDIATORS MAKE NEW PUSH FOR NK SETTLEMENT
Havilah Hoffman

EurasiaNet, NY
May 4 2006

International mediators are making another push to break the deadlock
in the Nagorno-Karabakh peace talks.

The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, which is charged with
mediating peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan, met in Moscow
on May 2-3. They decided to dispatch the French Minsk Group co-chair
Bernard Fassier to Yerevan and Baku to update Armenian and Azerbaijani
officials on negotiation proposals. Fassier is expected to arrive in
Baku on May 5, the Trend news agency reported. Hopes for a breakthrough
in peace talks diminished in February, when a summit meeting between
Armenian President Robert Kocharian and his Azerbaijani counterpart,
Ilham Aliyev, failed to make headway on a settlement framework. [For
background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

The meeting of the Minsk Group co-chairs followed Aliyev’s visit to
Washington in late April. The Karabakh peace issue figured prominently
in Aliyev’s meeting with US President George W. Bush [For background
see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Those talks gave top Azerbaijani
officials the impression that the United States, which is represented
in the Minsk Group, would strengthen its backing for Azerbaijan’s
negotiating position. In a May 1 interview with Lider TV, Azerbaijani
Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said that “the US president and
government are ready to take any measures necessary for the rapid
settlement of the conflict.”

Meanwhile, a recent report prepared by the Crisis Group called on
the European Union to assume a more active role in the Karabakh peace
process, independent of the Minsk Group’s mediation efforts. France
is the only state that has Minsk Group representation, as well as EU
membership. Russia is the other Minsk Group co-chair.

The report, titled Conflict Resolution in the Caucasus: The EU Role,
urged the EU to enhance its diplomatic influence by opening “fully
staffed European Commission delegations in Baku and Yerevan.” The
EU should also formulate initiatives that create a more favorable
negotiating environment, the report argued. “Sending military and
civilian assessment missions to the region could give new impetus to
the negotiation process,” it said.

Using “the lure of greater integration into Europe,” the EU can
encourage negotiating flexibility from both Armenia and Azerbaijan,
the report suggested. “Compared with other actors, the EU can offer
added value as an ‘honest broker’ – free from traditional US/Russia
rivalries,” the report said.

So far, the EU has refrained from a direct role in the Karabakh
peace process. Brussels has been more active in promoting security
in Georgia, where the government in Tbilisi wants to reintegrate the
separatist entities of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. At the same time,
the EU isn’t playing a direct role in political talks covering South
Ossetia and Abkhazia. “The South Caucasus is one of the few regions
where the EU has the crisis management capabilities to address existing
conflicts,” the report said. “It should do more with the instruments
at its disposal.”

The report warned that all three conflicts retain the potential
to reignite, citing the fact that “gunfire is still exchanged,
especially on the Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire line.” Stronger EU
participation could keep the peace processes from derailing, the
report indicated. “If the Georgian-South Ossetian and Nagorno-Karabakh
conflicts continue to deteriorate, the EU may find itself unprepared
for responding to wars among its neighbors,” the report cautioned.

Editor’s Note: Havilah Hoffman is an editorial assistant for EurasiaNet
in New York.