THE OSCE MINSK GROUP AS A TOOL TO PROMOTE U.S. INTERESTS IN THE CAUCASUS
by Andrei Areshev

Center for Research on Globalization, Canada
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Strategic Culture Foundation, 2007-04-11
Global Research
July 30 2007

The OSCE Minsk Group as a Tool to Promote U.S. Interests in the
Caucasus The refusal by U.S. State Department to issue an entry visa
to Abkahzia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Shamba caused severe criticism
of its American colleagues from the Russian Foreign Ministry. The
comment of the Ministry’s Information and Press Department had it that
by acting this way "U.S. State Department has actually blocked the
holding of an unofficial meeting between the Abkhazian representative
and members of the U.N. Security Council on the eve of negotiations
aimed at getting an agreement on the text of a new resolution relating
to the settlement of the Georgia-Abkhazia conflict."

Other excerpts of the text of the official statement of the RF
Foreign Ministry are no less noteworthy:"This stance of the American
diplomacy causes misunderstanding, raising serious question here in
Moscow… The Abkhazian side as one of the officially acknowledged
parties to the conflict has every right, along with Georgia, to get
its message across to the international participants of the settlement
process to express its views of the essence of the provisions of the
resolution that have to do with it." (emphasised by me, A.A.)

The controversy between Russia and the United States over the entire
complex of issues related to the unsettled conflicts is snowballing.

A recent session of the UN Security Council was devoted to "the
Ahtisaari Plan", according to which the region is to be granted actual
independence. A clear threat of a Russian veto made the West accelerate
the re-grouping of its diplomatic combat units concerning the Kosovo
issue. Former U.S. UN representative Richard Halbrook, one of the top
figures behind the bloodshed in the Balkans and the follow-up Bosnian
"peace-making", has warned that "a delay and emasculation of the plan,
or a veto on granting independence to Kosovo under the guidance of
an EU mission would result in a bloodshed, for which Russia would be
held responsible. Moscow’s response to this blackmail complete with
its threat of unleashing a new battle in the Balkans was extremely
negative, while the scandal around the aborted visit to New York of
the Abkhazian delegation only increased mutual distrust and suspicions.

>From time to time one can hear that there still is one conflict,
approaching which Russia, the United States and Europe identify
with one another as in no other case. What is meant is the Karabakh
conflict where different brokers are going out of their ways to observe
politesse and to demonstrate their unity of approach. Another proof of
this stance comes from Yerevan, where Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov paid a visit several days ago. According to him, the Nagorno
Karabakh conflict, to a greater degree than any other conflict, has to
be given the status of a unique case, and not because principles other
than those of the international law are applicable to it. The case
rather is that "from the practical point of view this must probably
be the only conflict where the interests of Russia, the United States
and the EU are never contradictory at the same time not contradicting
the interests of the conflicting sides."

Such a statement can really bewilder. From what Sergei Lavrov said
it is not quite clear why Karabakh was destined to be "so lucky". It
makes one think that the Russian minister was assigned to demonstrate
at least one example of Moscow’s successful interaction with Washington
in an attempt to settle at least one "frozen" conflict.

But it did not work out that way!

Regardless of the fact that both Moscow and Washington never stop
declaring that there is no alternative to the OSCE Minsk Group, its
intermediary’s activities of many years have been stalled. It would
be hard to expect something different, given that right from the
start the Minsk Group was a product of a political consensus of the
world’s leading players (the U.S., Russia and the EU) without a clearly
formulated mandate, and consequently, without clear-cut authority.

Over the period starting from the conclusion in 1994 – thanks to
Russia’s efforts -of a truce in Karabakh, the United States have been
taking most drastic measures aimed to ensure its forced military and
political and economic penetration into the Transcaucasus.

The role to be played by the Minsk Group has been transformed
accordingly. It has now virtually become a tool of realisation
of U.S. interests in this region. Matthew Braiza, the group’s
U.S. co-chair, has for a long time promoted U.S. energy projects on the
post-Soviet space, and he is still at it. Neither is he indifferent to
the "Iranian problem". Speaking at a press conference in Tbilisi on
March 30th, Braiza said: "under urgent conditions the United States
would count on using an Azeri aerodrome for military purposes." Many
commentators viewed that as another proof of Washington’s intention
to solve "the Iranian problem" by force. And in such an eventuality
the consequences can be most unfavourable to Armenia, the Republic of
Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan. Russian co-chairman of the Minsk Group
Y. Merzliakov is of the opinion that the intensification of tension
around Iran would put off the solution of the Karabakh problem thus
possibly leading to its new "freezing."

However, Merzliakov’s U.S. colleague thinks that the peaceful solution
of the Karabakh issue based on a compromise is not an end in itself, as
it is absolutely secondary to the solution of more important "global"
issues that are in no small degree connected with the complete ousting
of Russia from Transcaucasia.

To speak of any coincidence of Russia’s and the U.S. interests in the
solution of the Karabakh problem – as well as the problems of Kosovo,
Abkhazia and South Ossetia – is out of the question. Try as they might,
diplomats would fail to reassure the world public that the situation
is reverse. Their assurances look as some sort of self-mesmerising,
dangerous in its distortion of reality.

To those unwilling to go on milling over the settlement of the Karabakh
problem, the only constructive way is to consider the issue of whether
Russia should continue its membership in the OSCE Minsk Group as well
as that of a return to the negotiations format worked out by the 1994
OSCE Budapest summit and the follow-up resolutions.

As is prescribed by that format there are three parties at the Karabakh
negotiations, Azerbaijan, Armenia and the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh
(NKR), whose status as an internationally acknowledged party to the
conflict is identical to that of Abkhazia or South Ossetia.

The NKR, as well as other de-facto post-Soviet states, is entitled to
have "the complete right to bring across to the international parties
to the process of settlement its views", demanding that its right be
respected. It expects this right to be acknowledged.