Are the OSCE MG co-chairs trying to provoke a war? Nagorno Karabakh press digest
Regnum, Russia
July 19 2006
What will the freezing of the negotiating process lead to?
Golos Armenii daily believes that "if the negotiating process is
buried," everybody will stay with what they had, i.e. Armenia with
Karabakh, while Azerbaijan without the territories its president
Ilham Aliyev swore to get back by 2008, at latest. The general
opinion is that 2007 and 2008 are hopeless – because of internal
political processes in Armenia and Azerbaijan – "while 2006 has
already halved…"
Caucasian Knot news portal reports the speaker of Nagorno-Karabakh
parliament Ashot Gulyan as saying that NK’s participation is key
prerequisite for the resumption of the Karabakh peace talks. There are
several reasons why NK should be involved in the talks: "The natural
format of the talks should be restored; Karabakh should be allowed
to defend its own interest; and, third, Karabakh’s involvement will
mean that Azerbaijan is ready for compromise."
Nagorno Karabakh cannot take part in the talks as a conflicting
party at the current stage. The world community knows well who are
negotiators and who are conflicting parties, APA reports the head
of the Press and Information Policy Department of the Azeri Foreign
Ministry Tair Tagizade as saying in response to the statement by the
speaker of the NK parliament Ashot Gulyan. Tagizade says that after
the first stage, i.e. when the former ethnic composition of the NK
population is restored, Baku will work with both NK communities. This
is important for the problem of the NK status to be resolved in
conformity with the Constitution of Azerbaijan and also for ensuring
further development of this region.
"While now, cheap tricks like interpreting the words of Sabine Freizer
(the director of the Caucasian Project of the International Crisis
Group – REGNUM) that since the co-chairs no longer want to do anything
else on the problem, the parties should address it themselves as a
call for Nagorno Karabakh’s involvement in the process as a negotiating
party are non-constructive and meant just for internal political use,"
says Tagizade.
"I think they are directly provoking war," Armenian ex defense
minister Vahan Shirkhanyan says about the statement of the OSCE MG
co-chairs that they are stopping intensive mediatory diplomacy. Asked
if the mediators will continue their tactics – to let the conflicting
parties solve the problem on their own if the summer respite given to
the Armenian and Azeri presidents is left unused – Shirkhanyan says:
"We’ll see that very soon. If they continue being passive after the
G8 summit, this will mean an offer for Azerbaijan and Armenia to
solve the problem the way they can." (Aravot)
Azeri political scientist, the director of the Caucasian Crisis
Center Zardusht Alizade says that the Nagorno Karabakh conflict will
stay frozen for 10 years more. In a talk with Aravot daily (Yerevan)
Alizade says that the OSCE MG co-chairs were simply forced to state
they are freezing their mission and to disclose the details of the
talks as, particularly, the US has realized that it has exhausted
all of its ways to change the situation. The MG co-chairs decided to
pass the initiative to the two countries – to let their people decide
themselves what to do. "This is an attempt to get the problem moving.
They were simply forced to start open diplomacy. In its turn, Russia
is absolutely sure that it is pulling strings in Nagorno Karabakh
and Armenia and that the NK and Armenian leaders are under its thumb
and will make no single move without its consent. So, Russia is
cold-bloodedly watching how the US is sweating to solve the problem."
Alizade says that the issues discussed in Paris and before were
unacceptable for either Armenia or Azerbaijan. Even more, they
generated strong resistance and nationalist and chauvinist propaganda
in both states. "This was profitable for both Aliyev and Kocharyan.
That’s why now the opposition camps in both states are slating their
presidents from equally radical positions and are ardently advocating
the deadlock situation that is leading Azerbaijan and Armenia to
tragedy." Will the Armenian and Azeri authorities try to look for new
ways to solve the problem with no mediation by the OSCE MG and with
no interference by the MG member states? "Absolutely not. In fact,
what they have now is exactly what they wanted, what they dreamt of.
Until now the OSCE MG has been though formal but still a force that
forced them to take, at least, some steps. The co-chairs’ statement
about freezing their mediation is good for both Kocharyan and Aliyev:
now they can pass the buck on the MG and cheat their people by saying:
you see, the co-chairs have also held up their hands in capitulation –
they can’t bring us to common denominator. Then, they in Armenia will
start blaming Azerbaijan, they in Azerbaijan – Armenia, there will
be no initiative at all as both presidents are busy with something
much more important – they are robbing." Alizade is sure that there
will be no new war: "What war are you talking about if the boss needs
frozen conflict rather than war? Escalation is absolutely unprofitable
for Russia. And Kocharyan and Aliyev have one and the same boss –
Mr. Putin. They will do just what he tells them to. Should he tell
Kocharyan to attack Azerbaijan, he will attack, should he tell Aliyev
to attack Armenia, he will do – but Putin does not want that. Russia
wants the conflict to be frozen and it is frozen." Alizade refutes the
reports that Aliyev has changed his orientation from Russia to the
US: "Aliyev does not need that. What he needs is to fill his pocket
and if this requires giving promises to people, he is ready to give
them. Aliyev acts exactly the way your Kocharyan does?"
The Armenian and Azeri authorities have no alternative, the director
of the Center of Rights and Freedoms of Armenia Vardan Haroutyunyan
says to Aravot daily:
"They in power in Armenia and Azerbaijan regard the conflict as some
daily necessity. Here, the Armenian and Azeri authorities are very
much like each other. In both countries this conflict is the basis of
their foreign and domestic policies and everyday life and a way for
them to earn money. Neither side wants this problem to be solved:
the conflict helps them to keep power in their hands, to make big
money and to get, at least, some attention from those high and mighty,
while the proposals by the OSCE MG co-chairs and the world community
were not so much in their interests as in the interest of continuing
peace in the region. In this light, one could well expect that the
declassifying statements by Matthew Bryza (US co-chair of the OSCE
MG – REGNUM) would receive negative reaction from both sides. And
that’s exactly what is happening."
However, the Armenian FM said that the framework agreement on Karabakh
is acceptable for Armenia and they are ready to continue the talks
on the basis of these principles. True, some NGOs said that "Bryza’s
statements smell of oil."
The Armenian FM has been saying this for 7-8 years already. Whatever
initiative he spoke about, he said: "by the highest standards, it is
acceptable." However, the conflict is still present, which makes future
development impossible. As regards the statements by some radically
nationalist NGOs, they are quite natural. Our Nationalists think
that the louder they shout and slate the others, the stronger they
will get. This is self-assertion rather than patriotism. One thing
is sure: rule by Nationalists is a serious ordeal for any country as
they are known for their vanity, demagogy and irresponsibility. They
authorize themselves to speak on behalf of their nation and state and
forbid the others to do anything in this sphere. Cave patriotism and
nationalism have always led to fatal consequences." (Aravot)
New statement by the Minsk Group
Aravot daily reports the OSCE MG co-chairs to appear with a new
statement: "Taking into account recent speculation about the basic
principles for a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict
proposed to both parties by the Minsk Group Co-Chairs, it is necessary
to make the following clarification," say the co-chairs.
"The principles are based on the redeployment of Armenian troops
from Azerbaijani territories around Nagorno Karabakh, with special
modalities for Kelbajar and Lachin districts (including a corridor
between Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh), demilitarization of those
territories, and a referendum or population vote – at a date and in
a manner to be decided through further negotiations – to determine
the final legal status of Nagorno Karabakh."
"Certain interim arrangements for Nagorno Karabakh would allow for
interaction with providers of international assistance."
The co-chairs stand ready to assist the parties to conclude an
agreement if the presidents indicate they are prepared to do so.
In conclusion, they say: "Although no additional meetings between the
sides under the auspices of the Co-Chairs are planned for the immediate
future, they will be ready to reengage if the parties decide to pursue
the talks with the political will that has thus far been lacking.
Zerkalo daily (Baku) says that "the double-dealing of the OSCE MG
co-chair-states" is increasingly actively pushing Azerbaijan into
solving the Karabakh problem by war. The daily reports the director of
the International Center for Strategic Studies Against International
Terrorism and Corruption "Bank-Information" Rovshan Novruzoglu as
saying that no single official document in France contains a single
sentence about the "occupation" of 20% of Azeri territory even though
this year alone the French Ambassador to Baku has made 17 official
statements that Nagorno Karabakh belongs to Azerbaijan and that the
country’s territorial integrity must be restored. The other co-chair,
the US, says in official, intelligence and diplomatic directories that
Azerbaijan has lost only 16% of its territory… Those directories
do not even say that the territories were "occupied’ by Armenia
and say that there are only 800,000 instead of 1 million Azeri
refugees. Novruzoglu says that the third OSCE MG co-chair Russia is
no better: even though the whole world knows about the mono-ethnic
policy of the Armenians, Moscow helps them to veil it. Russia has
given guarantees for creating community of Slavonic nations over ‘the
occupied Azeri lands’ and Russian community in Nagorno Karabakh. This
community was registered in 1998 by the Justice Ministry of the
so-called ‘Nagorno Karabakh Republic.’ They in Yerevan and Stepanakert
have opened ‘Houses of Slavonic Nations.’
As far as Bank-Information knows, 79 Russian soldiers and officers
serve in the armed forces of the separatists: 22 of them in the
motorized infantry division in Agderin district, 16 in the 2nd
motorized infantry brigade in the village of Garahanbeyli, 19 in the
538th regiment in the village of Agdabad. 54 Armenian soldiers and
officers serve at Gabala Radar Station under the Russian flag. Hence,
the daily concludes that the statements by Azeri government officials
and representatives of international organizations that they hope
that the OSCE MG co-chairs will help to resolve the Karabakh conflict
is just a way to drag time. In fact, the co-chairs cannot go against
the will and policy of their states. ‘So, there is only one way left
… painful, thorny but sure way…’
Azg daily believes that the co-chairs just want to see how people in
Armenia, Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabakh will react to their proposals
and later on to make those people ready to accept their settlement
scenario. We have already noted that the international pressure on
the conflicting parties will continue to grow and that the proposed
settlement principles will be imposed on them. Obviously, things are
developing exactly this way. The first serious proof is that the
G8 FMs have approved the co-chairs’ proposals and have urged the
two presidents to take a step towards peace. The daily says that
Azerbaijan may well pin all of its hopes on the oil prospects and
refuse to sign an agreement. Thereby, it will drive the conflict into
a deadlock. What shall Armenia do then? The only logical way for the
country is to attain by all means the international recognition of
Nagorno Karabakh. Azerbaijan’s unyielding defiance of the international
community is the best pretext for that. We have just to wait and
see. If Armenia and Azerbaijan fail to sign any agreement because of
irreconcilability of the other side, Armenia will have to seize this
opportunity and get the international community to recognize Nagorno
Karabakh, says the daily.
‘The last proposals by the OSCE MG co-chairs can serve as a basis
for the Karabakh peace talks,’ De Facto reports the speaker of the
NK parliament Ashot Gulyan as saying during a press-conference. He
says that ‘not all the provisions of the statement are acceptable
for the Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenian leaders.’ He says that ‘it is
early yet to speak about deployment of peacekeeping forces in the
Karabakh conflict zone.’ He agrees that peacekeepers will guarantee
peace and fulfillment of the signed agreement, but, at the same time,
he notes that the sides have been effectively keeping peace on their
own for many years already and can do it in the future too. ‘NKR is
careful about the possibility of deployment of peacekeepers in the
conflict zone,’ says NK Foreign Minister Georgy Petrossyan.
Iranian Ambassador to Azerbaijan Afshar Suleymani says that the OSCE
MG co-chair-states seek not so much to promote the conflict resolution
as to ensure their own interests. Suleymani says: ‘Those who come from
afar care for their own interests. I believe that the Nagorno Karabakh
problem has become an object of interest for certain circles, and the
role of the OSCE MG co-chairs is just to ensure their own interests
at the expense of the gist of the problem – the interest of the
Azeri people.’ In such a situation, the conflict will either be left
unresolved or be resolved upon terms imposed by the co-chair-states and
running counter to the interests of the conflicting parties. (Day.Az).
With no reliable and, more importantly, full information about the
content of the ‘framework agreement’ in hand, we can’t draw any
conclusions, says Respublika Armenia daily. Still, we are puzzled to
see that the co-chairs, who are perfectly aware that it was exactly
the Azeri president who rejected the draft agreement in Bucharest,
still persist in urging both sides to show political will, thereby,
making people in Armenia believe that they are pressuring Yerevan.
The fact that the program of the OSCE MG co-chairs has not been made
public allows the Armenian and Azeri authorities to pick up only
those components that will help them to avoid being called ‘traitors
and capitulators’ by their own people, says Aravot daily. In fact,
the Armenian and Azeri officials give quite different pictures of
what was discussed during the Kocharyan-Aliyev talks.
1. The Armenian officials report the co-chairs to suggest that the
referendum on the Nagorno-Karabakh status be held over the territory
of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region according to the
Armenian-Azeri population ratio of 1988. The Azeri officials say that
the co-chairs suggest holding the referendum over the whole territory
of Azerbaijan.
2. The Armenian officials report the co-chairs to suggest that the
Armenian troops be first withdrawn from five districts and be left
in Kelbajar and Lachin, while the Azeri officials speak about all
seven districts, including Kelbajar and Lachin.
3. The Armenians say that the co-chairs do not even mention
Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, while the Azeris say that their
proposals are based exactly on Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity.
With so diametrically opposite comments, it is not very much clear
what precisely we, the public, should discuss, says Aravot. And if
in the three ‘Prague Process’ years the sides have failed to agree
on any single key point, what were they talking about, in the first
place, and why did the co-chairs say, from time to time, that the
sides had agreed on the key points and had just to coordinate 1-2
remaining ones? If the settlement program is actually the way the
Armenian authorities present it, we may as well accept it. Of course,
here too we have some former warriors who show extremist approach
by saying ‘we will give no single inch of land,’ but this approach
is obviously provoked by the authorities themselves – i.e. by their
attempts to prove what heroic efforts it takes them to overcome the
resistance of our ‘retarded society.’ (Aravot)
International Crisis Group
In an exclusive interview to APA news agency the director of the
Caucasian Project of the International Crisis Group Sabine Freizer
qualified the situation in the Karabakh peace process as very
critical. She believes that the Azerbaijani and Armenian sides were
much closer to an agreement in summer 2005 than they are today:
‘There was much optimism until the Rambouillet meeting that there
would be a peace agreement this year, that Armenian backed troops
would begin withdrawal, and Azerbaijani IDPs would begin to return
home during the second half of 2006 or in early 2007. This optimism
has disappeared. Instead the co-chairs have stated that they are
going to suspend their work.’
Commenting on the words of the co-chairs that both presidents are
responsible for the settlement of the conflict, Freizer says that the
most important text to be considered is the statement made by the
OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs at the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna
on June 22, 2006: ‘This statement provides a coherent and unified
approach to the resolution of the conflict. It is perhaps the most
open and critical statement the OSCE Minsk Group has ever made. It is
also the first time since the start of the Minsk Group facilitated
negotiations in 1994 that the co-chairs have said that they see
no point in continuing their work. I am very surprised that few in
Azerbaijan or in Armenia are commenting on this point. The Minsk Group
statement means in practice that there is no longer any internationally
facilitated negotiations format for the resolution of the NK conflict.
What does this mean? Will the two sides manage to negotiate on their
own without any third party mediation? Will another mediator appear?
If the United States, Russia and France are giving up, what other
international forces have the influence and authority to play a
negotiator role? I don’t believe that any new mediators will appear.
Rather we are entering a very dangerous phase where there will be
no peaceful negotiations between the sides. Again since 1994 this is
the first time that we are in such a situation.’
Freizer says that the critical statements by the Ministries of
Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan and Armenia prove that they are strongly
concerned for the course of the negotiating process: ‘The Armenian
side is insisting that the principles included a reference to the
Lachin corridor, and to the right to self determination of the people
of NK of their own status through a referendum. The Azerbaijani side
is stating that the principles included liberation of the occupied
territories, demilitarization of the conflict zone, and the return
of all Azerbaijani IDPs. Yet these are precisely the points that the
two sides continue to disagree on – and why they were unable to sign
a set of principles in Rambouillet and Bucharest.
The modalities of withdrawal from Lachin and Kelbajar and the
modalities of a popular vote on the status of NK were not agreed
upon by the sides. This is why the co-chairs recommended that they be
addressed later – in separate working groups. But in the meantime they
suggested that a peace-building process start with the withdrawal of
Armenia backed troops of five districts – to be followed by withdrawal
from the other two – and return of IDPs to their homes.’
Calling this a tragic process Freizer says that in 2006 there was a
chance for withdrawal to begin and return to start. ‘Now there is no
peace process. There is not even a negotiations process. Instead the
Azerbaijani side is increasingly referring to the military option. If
Azerbaijan decides to take offensive action against NK and Armenia,
how many more years will it be before this conflict is resolved? How
many more displaced persons and casualties will there be? How definite
is it that Azerbaijan will get a better deal using the military option
than what is on the table today?’
"The issue of the referendum on the status of Nagorno Karabakh is
clearly one of the most sensitive points in the package that was
being discussed. As the co-chairs state: for a withdrawal of Armenian
backed forces from the occupied territories to begin, the sides would
have to agree on the principle that a referendum will determine
final status. But the precise modalities of this referendum would
be discussed in further negotiations. Thus the key issue of debate
between the Armenian and Azerbaijani side of who would participate
in the referendum, where and when it would be held, would be decided
upon later.
Freizer says that the international community is unlikely to use any
other pressure mechanisms to encourage Armenia to withdraw from the
occupied territories. She says that at the next stage everything will
depend on the conflicting sides. If they fail to show political will
for overcoming contradictions, they should not expect international
assistance in the matter. They should not hope for international
support if they decide to solve the problem in military way, says
Frezier.