Vladimir Kazimirov: Conformism to whims and "creeping" concessions
resulted in a deadlock in Karabakh peace process

Regnum, Russia
July 18 2006

The report on Karabakh presented by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs
to the OSCE Permanent Council and their recent statements have shed
some light on the content of the private consultations between the
Azeri and Armenian presidents and FMs on the sensitive points of the
Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) conflict settlement.

The objective of the co-chairs was not only to report on their work and
to press on the leaders of the conflicting parties, but also to start
"making their people ready for peace" instead of them. Now they are
discussing the pluses and minuses of the peace process for each side,
but if they actually want to ensure peace, they should better give
this problem a wider approach.

Some media have presented the texts of the report and the statements
with lots of inaccuracies in translation, which is giving rise to
false rumors. For as long as more Armenians and Azeris know Russian
better than English, such documents should be made in Russian. They
in Vienna translate into English more expertly than they in the South
Caucasus – from English.

I would like to start with seemingly formal cavil at the co-chairs’
texts. They should better abstain from using in vain such significant
terms as "principles" and "agreement." Here the question is hardly
about "basic principles," let alone "framework agreement." The
co-chairs have given just general contours rather than specific –
and by no means new – principles.

True, they are trying to apply two real principles in Karabakh:
non-application of force and threats of force and peaceful resolution
of disputes. Here they must be given all-out support!

It is very early to speak about "framework agreement" yet. Even if the
parties agreed on specific "principles," it would be just political
arrangement between the two parties rather than final agreement. It
would take a long time to negotiate each element into a full-value
legally-binding agreement.

Another problem is the circle of agreeing parties. It doesn’t befit
the co-chairs to hope that Armenia will talk Karabakh into agreement.
How can one hope to oblige the Karabakh Armenians to withdraw their
troops from the five districts outside NK unless they also sign the
agreement? And what a line they should be withdrawn to? Full agreement
requires consent of all conflicting parties (like was the case during
the May 12, 1994 truce). There is no other way, like it or not.

In this light, it is surprising to see the careless mention of
"two parties," "both parties" in the Vienna text. Three parties to
the Karabakh conflict is something that has long been recognized in
OSCE documents and by the OSCE MG co-chairs. Who and when has changed
this approach? Where is the decision? Conformism to somebody’s whims,
"creeping" concessions just for continuing, at least, some kind of
talks leads to deadlocks and failures. And we can see the result.

The co-chairs say they are successors just to what has been done in the
last nine years. Strange dating, isn’t it! The US and France joined
in 1997, but Russia had already been both co-chair and independent
mediator by that time. There had been other chairs and co-chairs in
the OSCE MG too. A whole range of settlement ideas was worked out long
ago. And the whole work of the mediators is based on the cease-fire
agreement attained through Russia’ mediation in 1994.

Let’s proceed to the main point – to the gist of the problems. One
can’t start from peace settlement (from withdrawing troops from
occupied territories) and then … come what may. Peace process
sustainability and guarantees are mentioned just casually as
something closing the primary measures, while the first and foremost
"unconditional condition" (sine qua non) must be the absolute refusal
by all the conflicting parties to use force and to make any attempts
to resume war. This may require international affirmation – perhaps,
by the UN Security Council. This must not be left just outlined but
unfinished. This is a kind of "zero cycle" – something to be finished
before the beginning of the "first stage."

The key source of threat to the Karabakh peace process is Azerbaijan,
who can’t put up with its failures during that war. This is generally
known and can be seen with the naked eye: bellicose statements, calls
for arms race and revenge, encouraged hostility towards Armenians,
breach of contacts with them. In fact, Baku rejects the co-chairs’
proposals more frequently and strongly. That’s why the co-chairs
should closely follow Azerbaijan’s positions and arguments to see
and to show what and why is unacceptable and inappropriate in them.

What the co-chairs propose now is "most of the territories in exchange
for promise of referendum on NK’s status (without saying exactly when
and how). This proposal specifies only the withdrawal of Armenians
from five districts, leaving almost everything substantial from the
rest in total uncertainty. It is naive to expect that the parties
will agree on the referendum later. So, it means there will be no
referendum at all. This would leave unsettled the key problem of the
conflict, the status of NK, the problems of Qalbajar and Lachin and
the selfsame potential danger of new war – but this is exactly what is
inadmissible. The co-chairs should move farther than that in the very
first agreement (by both ensuring the "zero cycle" and elaborating,
at least, some ground terms of the referendum).

This must not be left until later. People’s will is decisive for
determining the status of NK. In a sensitive and conflict-prone region
like the South Caucasus, the international community must discourage
any attempts to settle problems by threats or blood. This is equally
applicable to the recent past – the military success of Armenians in
1992-1994 – and, especially, to the future – the absurd revenge dreams
of some Azeris – even though we know the results of both the pre-war
referendum and the "bullet voting." This problem needs civilized
approach with no military confrontation. One must not regard Karabakh
as just somebody’s territory and ignore the opinion of its people.

Law rather than force must decide here.

Baku refers to its Constitution saying that referendum in Azerbaijan
is possible only on a nationwide scale. However, they forget that
they adopted this constitution in late 1995 exactly to prevent people
in Karabakh and other regions from expressing their will. The use
of basic law as just a weapon for political propaganda may recoil
in irreversible change of it, particularly, in this point. In fact,
any outcome of the dispute over NK will require drastic changes in
the Azeri Constitution.

If Baku is actually so zealous in observing its Constitution,
then it should also more often remind its people about Article 9 of
the same Constitution saying that war must not be a way to resolve
international conflicts.

One more inaccuracy is the neglect of the succession from the
Azeri SSR – something that is now preventing Baku from asserting its
"legacy." The authors of the Constitution 1995 were so eager to avoid
any mention of the Azeri SSR that when abrogating the Constitution 1978
they even failed to give their new republic a legally correct name. So,
the trick with the Constitution is not working out. Today, voting on
their own status are only those whom it concerns directly rather than
indirectly (Quebec rather than Canada; Catalonia rather than Spain).

Concerning the referendum itself. Why put off the date of referendum
for as many as 10-15 years (i.e. for the period after the second term
of the Azeri president). Why can’t they hold the referendum 4-5 years
after they start implementing the cherished agreement? Of course,
the Azeris who lived in Karabakh before the war and their children
born there should also be allowed to vote. They should be allowed
to go back to their homes, but also to know under what authorities
they are going back. They may as well vote from distance (the way
they did during the last parliamentary elections) lest there might
be any incidents leading to escalating tensions and failing referendum.

The co-chairs should not avoid these issues (nor keep them secret, or
leave them until later). The remaining problems are not so disputable
even though they too will require persistence from both the parties
and the mediators.

The right to voluntary return of displaced persons and refugees to
their former homes is one of the axioms of settlement, but – only
for all sides. If those people refuse to return they should have the
right to compensation. All districts should be deeply demilitarized
before the finalization of NK’s status. The security of the returnees
should be ensured by peacekeepers from outside and sufficient civil
police forces from inside.

In order to make their peacekeeping operation effective and compact,
the mediators should deploy international observers along two lines
(the present contact line and the external line of withdrawal) and 2-3
mobile shock groups in between. The key task of those groups would
be to prevent any attempts to wreck the demilitarization process by
any of the parties and to react to "spontaneous" actions by civilians
(this mechanism is not new). By the time of the agreement signing,
the parties will have to determine the national composition of the
observers and peacekeepers.

By their slyness the parties to the Karabakh conflict hinder the
co-chairs in their search for solutions, but the latter are so tactful
that they are sometimes "ashamed" to call "a spade a spade." For the
former co-chairs, things are much easier. The parties have created
lots of myths and propaganda tricks about the conflict.

Some people like showing the exterior and hiding the interior: they
cry about occupation but are silent about its origin. Today Azeris
are giving a humanitarian overtone to their demands for eliminating
occupation and repatriating refugees. They are blaming Armenians
for occupation but are covering their own sins: their persistent
reluctance to stop war in 1992-1994 (they broke cease fire agreements
for four times! and shirked peace initiatives) (Armenians also dodged
but never avoided such agreements). Now they face the music: loss of
seven districts and hundreds of thousands of refugees. How it all
began is a taboo subject in Azerbaijan as it casts a big shadow on
Elchibey and an even bigger shadow on the all-national leader.

Today Azerbaijan appeals to the four UN SC resolutions 1993 and
demands their observance, but neither Armenians nor Azeris themselves
have so far observed any single requirement from these resolutions
(except for the cease-fire). It was exactly Baku who for a whole year
ignored the key requirement of all the resolutions by trying to take
upper hand by force (and it was then that the UN SC stopped making
resolutions on Karabakh at all). A few days ago the former advisor of
the Azeri presidents Vafa Guluzade said: "The UN SC resolutions must
be observed, full stop!" Did he advise this to Elchibey and Heydar
Aliyev in 1993-1994? Or, probably, they refused to listen to him?

If it was actually a matter of humanity – the way they in Baku say –
they would have long liberated some of the districts and taken back
hundreds of thousands of refugees, in the meantime, considering the
return of the others, including of 45,000 residents of NK. It might
seem that the gaping discrepancy in figures would urge Baku to show
flexibility.

Nothing of the sort! So, it turns out that their point is not solely
the sufferings of the refugees. In fact, the co-chairs have failed to
get the conflicting parties to directly admit that the status of NK
is the key disputed problem. Everybody in the world understands this,
but not everybody concerned admits: each side says that Karabakh
is "indisputably" its own territory – something only its present
and former residents can say. If they recognized the key subject of
their dispute, this would make a civilized democratic resolution much
easier. Today everybody cares for democracy, don’t they?

Putting the blame for the loss of Karabakh on the People’s Front of
Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev perfectly understood that he could not get
it back and was close to swapping it for the occupied territories. He
just sought some compensation (like corridor via Meghri) and a decent
way to formalize the deal. He stopped when he saw that his supporters
were leaving him.

For the present Azeri president concessions (something that is really
indispensable for resolution) are even more dangerous. Insuring
himself against agreements, Ilham Aliyev is raising the demands: now
he refuses "to yield" even Karabakh but, at the same time, he avoids
normal ways to settle the related dispute. He contradicts his own
self: he first says that his patience is not limitless and then calls
for patience in order to gain strength and to force Armenians into
capitulation. He is also contradictory on peace and war (not mentioning
that war is absolutely incompatible with the Azeri Constitution and
that the relapse of violence may have extremely negative consequences
for both sides). There is also an obvious reluctance to understand
the specificity of the tectonic epoch of collapse of the USSR and
other states in Europe and no less obvious preference of general
wordings about justice, international law and territorial integrity
(something more like spells) to specific discussions and concrete
arguments. Hardly any leader of nation can feed his domestic public
opinion with such products, not mentioning exporting them abroad.

This all makes peace agreement impossible and condemns the co-chairs
to a forced pause and half-truth – and the displaced persons ("over
million"!) to further vegetation.

With all my respect for my co-chair-colleagues, I dare say that
they should more actively engraft the commitment to peace and
non-application of force in the conflicting parties – something they
really should do instead of ramming settlement recipes. Azerbaijan and
Armenia have repeatedly undertaken these commitments – particularly,
before the OSCE – and how are they honoring them? In fact, they are
breaking them directly and repeatedly by continuing mutual threats.

That’s what the mediators should give not only the rest of 2006 but
also the following two years too, if they really want to come as close
as possible to real peace agreement. And this does not obligatorily
require consideration by G8 now and even by UN SC for the time being.

Vladimir Kazimirov – Ambassador; in 1992-1996 head of Russia’s
mediatory mission; plenipotentiary representative of the Russian
President on Nagorno Karabakh; member and co-chair of the OSCE Minsk
Group from Russia; presently, deputy chairman of the Association of
Russian Diplomats.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress