ARMENIAN, AZERI PRESIDENTS SET FOR "DECISIVE" TALKS ON KARABAKH
By Emil Danielyan
Eurasia Daily Monitor, DC
May 29 2007
The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan have agreed to hold yet
another face-to-face meeting that could result in a long-awaited
breakthrough in international efforts to resolve the conflict over
Karabakh. The U.S., French, and Russian diplomats acting under
the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group say the two warring nations
have already agreed on most of the basic principles of a peaceful
settlement put forward by them. The mediators hope that Presidents
Robert Kocharian and Ilham Aliyev will eliminate the remaining
sticking points when they meet on the sidelines of the June 9-10
summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States in St. Petersburg.
Agreement to hold the meeting was reached during last week’s joint
visit to Yerevan and Baku by the Minsk Group’s Russian co-chair, Yuri
Merzlyakov, and his French counterpart, Bernard Fassier. The two men
are due to again visit the conflict zone just days before the St.
Petersburg summit together with the group’s U.S. co-chair, Matthew
Bryza, and Spain’s Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, the OSCE’s
current chairman-in-office. The timing of Moratinos’s trips illustrates
just how high international hopes for Karabakh peace are at the moment.
"The parties are really close to a common denominator on the basic
principles," Azerbaijani media quoted Merzlyakov as saying after
talks with Aliyev on May 25. He told journalists in Yerevan on May
24 that the "circle of unresolved issues is narrowing." "If the St.
Petersburg meeting is successful, then the number of principles that
have not yet been fully agreed on will be practically brought down
to zero," Merzlyakov added.
Armenia’s Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian echoed the cautious optimism
the next day. "The meeting between the Armenian and Azerbaijani
presidents in Saint-Petersburg will be a decisive one, and after that,
it will become clear whether a real progress in the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict settlement is possible in the near future," he said.
The mediators are pushing for the signing of a framework peace
agreement before the start of campaigning for presidential elections
due in both Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2008. Fassier warned in Yerevan
that failure to do so would effectively nullify substantial progress
that has been made in Karabakh peace talks in recent years. Both he
and Merzlyakov stressed that although a framework deal would not
constitute a comprehensive peace accord, it would formally commit
the parties to making serious mutual concessions and thereby pave
the way for conflict resolution.
Aliyev and Kocharian had been widely expected to cut such a deal
when they held two days of intensive negotiations in the French
chateau of Rambouillet in February 2005. But neither those talks,
nor their follow-up encounter in Bucharest in June 2005, produced any
agreement. The two leaders revived hopes for a near-term solution to
the Karabakh dispute when they held what appears to have been a far
more productive meeting in Minsk last November. The Minsk meeting led
to a renewed flurry of diplomatic activity by the mediators and more
direct talks between the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers.
"I would say that never before have we been so close to a settlement,"
Azerbaijan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov said during an early
May visit to Moscow.
The highly confidential discussions center on the Minsk Group’s
existing peace plan that essentially boils down to holding a referendum
on self-determination in Karabakh years after the liberation of
Armenian-occupied Azerbaijani districts surrounding the disputed
enclave. Disagreements on the date and other practical modalities of
the proposed referendum are believed to have been one of the reasons
for the collapse of the Rambouillet and Bucharest talks. Armenian
officials say Karabakh’s predominantly Armenian population would
thus be able to legitimize its secession from Azerbaijan. Aliyev has
claimed, however, that the Karabakh Armenians would only vote on the
degree of their self-rule within Azerbaijan.
According to Armenian diplomatic sources privy to the negotiating
process, the would-be peace deal may not set any dates for such a
vote. In that case, Karabakh will indefinitely remain under Armenian
control without Azerbaijan having to renounce its sovereignty over
the territory.
Another key stumbling block is Armenian withdrawal from Kelbajar and
Lachin, two of the seven Azerbaijani districts that are sandwiched
between Karabakh and Armenia proper. The Armenian side has been
ready, at least until last summer, to liberate Kelbajar only after
the referendum, something that was deemed unacceptable by Baku. It
has also rejected Azerbaijani demands for the return of Lachin, which
serves as the shortest overland link between Karabakh and Armenia.
The mediators have expressed hope that Aliyev and Kocharian will show
the "political will" to overcome these and other disagreements.
Whether either leader has such resolve remains an open question.
Aliyev, for example, regularly insists that time favors his oil-rich
nation, which he says will eventual gain military superiority over
Armenia and force the latter to make more concessions. That Kocharian
is really committed to mutual compromise is not a given either, even
though his government has essentially accepted the Minsk Group’s
current and previous peace plans. Besides, with Kocharian due to
complete his second and final term in office in less than a year from
now, any peace deal will need the backing of his longtime associate
and most likely successor, Prime Minister Serge Sarkisian. The latter
has publicly backed the existing international peace plan but sounded
skeptical about peace prospects of late, pointing to Aliyev’s bellicose
statements.
(Day.az, May 25; Arminfo, May 25; Azg, May 25; RFE/RL Armenia Report,
May 24, May 8)