ROTATION IN THE MINSK GROUP WILL NOT HINDER NEGOTIATIONS
"PanARMENIAN.Net" analytical department

PanARMENIAN.Net
17.06.2006 GMT+04:00

Coincidence of the change of American co-chairman and the appointment
of new U.S. Ambassadors in Baku and Yerevan was not accidental.

The new American co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk group will take up
duties not earlier than June 27th. On this day he will be introduced
to the OSCE Secretariat in Vienna. It is noteworthy that on Thursday
it was officially confirmed that the U.S. State Department appointed
Mathew Bryza a representative of Minsk group. Previously, Mathew Bryza
occupied the post of the deputy assistant of the State Secretary for
Europe and Eurasia.

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Change of the co-chairman should not mean that
American diplomacy is shifting accents in "Karabakh" policy. It
is an ordinary rotation which regularly takes place in the Minsk
group. Americans change their representative once in about two years.

(Steven Mann was appointed in April, 2004). France and Russia
do that more seldom. Mathew Bryza will become the 6th American
representative. It is noticeable that the rotation usually takes
place after an unsuccessful round of negotiations. A new person brings
new ideas.

But up to now rotation has not brought to any changes in the strategy
of American mediators. U.S. interests in the region remain unchanged
even after the change of presidents. Thus, little depends on the
co-chairman’s personality. However, in this case one can notice
preconditions for global changes of the American politics in the
region. The thing is that the rotation of the Minsk group co-chairman
coincided with the appointment of new Ambassadors in Baku and
Yerevan. And this is of course not accidental. (Both ambassadors have
been appointed but have not visited capitals). The State Department
is changing all the three diplomats responsible for the execution of
Washington’s policy in the South-Eastern Caucasus.

This can prove serious changes in the tactic of American diplomacy
where current priorities are first of all connected with the
development of situation in Iran.

Thus, the new person coming in to the Minsk group does not have
his predecessor’s deep knowledge of the negotiation process and the
essence of the conflict.

Baku, Yerevan and Stepanakert are all interested in the question –
whether the new co-chairman’s appointment will hinder the negotiation
process.

Worries on this issue are well-grounded. What is significant is
that Mathew Bryza himself asserts that "regulation of the conflict
is possible during this year". He also says that currently parties
are negotiating a very encouraging draft of a document.

Braveness of the diplomat’s judgments may look vulgar, since for
the beginning he would need to get deeper in the state of affairs
and analyze the information on what had been happening in the Minsk
group before him.

However, it looks like Bryze was doing that during the past three-four
months. His indirect participation in the negotiation process became
noticeable yet late in winter. His appointment was not unexpected
for Yerevan and Baku since his deep interest in the Karabakh conflict
allowed guessing that he was to become Steven Mann’s successor. Since
the beginning of this year Bryza has twice visited the region and had
meetings with Ilham Aliev and Robert Kocharyan with whom he discussed
Karabakh problem. He also accompanied mediators during their last
visit. Thus, there can be no doubts that Bryza is already enough
prepared and there is no need to expect stoppage in the negotiation
process.

By the way, it is worth mentioning that the diplomatic level of Mathew
Bryza is quite high which testifies to the fact that Washington assigns
importance to the settlement of Karabakh conflict. At the same time,
it is obvious that the State Department valued the professionalism of
Bryza’s predecessor who was appointed to quite a high post. Currently,
Steven Mann is the State Secretary’s assistant for Asian affairs.

Certain political forces in Azerbaijan usually try to make use of
changes in the Minsk group for raising the issue of reviewing the
negotiations’ format and the mediatory mission staff. Azeris have
repeatedly tried to discredit countries which are at the head of the
Minsk group, accusing them of injustice. However, the attempts to
bring the negotiation process out of OSCE into the frames of other
international organizations do not have any prospects. The mediatory
mission’s format was agreed on the 26th of March, 1922 by the decision
of OSCE summit and was indirectly approved by four UN resolutions. The
group which is authorized to deal with Karabakh conflict regulation
was formed by the membership of the following countries: Bulgaria,
Germany, Italy, Russia, USA, Turkey, France, Czechoslovakia and
Sweden. Besides, it was decided to involve elected representatives
from Nagorno Karabakh, as an interested party.

At the beginning the Minsk group was headed by one chairman. It was
headed by a certain diplomat and not a country. The first chairman of
the group was Italian Mario Rafaelly. Later on he was substituted by
Yan Elliason from Sweden. The institute of co-chairmen was formed in
1944. Since then, the group has been headed by states and not certain
persons. Azeris often raise the issue of Russia’s withdrawal from
co-chairmanship, arguing it by Russia’s partnership with Armenia.

However, those attempts are senseless since the OSCE summit has
appointed Russia as a permanent co-chairman of the Minsk group and
Minsk conference. Besides, the second co-chairman state was appointed
by the rotation principle. At first co-presided with Stockholm, then
with Helsinki. Triple co-chairmanship of Russia, USA and France was
approved in December 1996. None of the mentioned three countries
is able to reconsider the format. It is worth mentioning that no
international organization has ever put to doubt the efficiency of
the Minsk group’s efforts. UN, PACE and European parliament have
all approved resolutions where they expressed their full trust and
support to the mediators’ activities. Thus, there are no grounds to
expect changes in the staff of co-chairmen within the coming years.