KOSOVO PRECEDENT WATCH
by Nikolas K. Gvosdev
The National Interest Online, DC
4626
June 13 2007
One of the more novel arguments raised by those who maintain that no
new United Nations resolution would be needed to replace 1244-which
explicitly called for the maintenance of the territorial integrity of
"Yugoslavia" and called only for substantial autonomy for Kosovo, is
to maintain that the Serbia of 2007 is a "different" state and that
the dissolution of the union between the two constituent republics of
the 1999-era Yugoslavia-Serbia and Montenegro-invalidates the whole
notion of preserving Serbia’s territorial integrity.
Linked to this, one sometimes hears a second but related argument-that
autonomous provinces within Serbia also have the right to leave Serbia.
Now, an interesting variant of these arguments has arisen
in the context of the Minsk Group which is seeking to find a
settlement between the separatist (and largely Armenian) republic
of Nagorno-Karabakh while preserving the territorial integrity of
Azerbaijan. There are now reports that the Russian co-chair Yuri
Merzlyakov offered this attempt to "square the circle" -between
recognizing the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and permitting an
independent Nagorno-Karabakh state to emerge-by drawing a distinction
between "Soviet" Azerbaijan, within which Nagorno-Karabakh was an
autonomous republic-and "independent" Azerbaijan which has never
exercised sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh.
Merlyakov said, "From the legal viewpoint the Nagorno Karabakh
Autonomous Region (NKAR) was a part of the Azerbaijani SSR. Now Nagorno
Karabakh is an unrecognized state and the issue of its borders and
who belongs it to lies in the sphere of international law."
U.S. co-chair Matt Bryza has not apparently commented on Merlyakov’s
remarks.
(By the way, a news conference was held in Yerevan earlier today on
this question: Why can Kosovo be independent but Karabakh cannot?)
Nikolas K. Gvosdev is editor of The National Interest.