KOSOVO AND KARABAKH: HOW AZERBAIJAN SEES THE CONNECTION
Rovshan Ismayilov

EurasiaNet
March 28 2008
NY

Azerbaijan’s decision to withdraw its peacekeepers from Kosovo is
playing into a larger debate about the future of the Nagorno-Karabakh
peace process.

Azerbaijani troops have participated in the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization’s peacekeeping operation since 1999. But with only 33
Azerbaijani soldiers serving in Kosovo – attached to a larger Turkish
battalion – the decision to withdraw in early March, at first glance,
does not seem critically undermine the 16,000-strong NATO contingent’s
peacekeeping capabilities.

The move, however, does have larger geopolitical implications. In
Kosovo’s February 18 declaration of independence, post-Soviet
countries like Azerbaijan, Georgia and Moldova see a reflection of
their own problems with separatism. In Baku’s case, Kosovo serves as
a potentially troubling precedent for the resolution of its 20-year
conflict with Armenia over Karabakh. [For background see the Eurasia
Insight archive].

Karabakh Armenians control the territory and wish to gain
independence. Baku, meanwhile, has offered the region broad autonomy
under continued Azerbaijani jurisdiction. Given the circumstances,
any action that recognizes, or even acknowledges Kosovo’s independence,
has the potential to undermine Baku’s stance on Karabakh.

That realization motivated the Azerbaijani parliament to overwhelmingly
approve on March 4 a presidential proposal to recall its Kosovo
platoon. President Ilham Aliyev earlier complained that recognition of
Kosovo’s independence had "a negative impact on the Nagorno-Karabakh
peace process," adding that the "the factor of force is a decisive
one." The Azerbaijani president reiterated that Azerbaijan continues
to mull a military option for Karabakh.

"Azerbaijan is increasing its military budget and building up its
army," the official AzerTag news agency quoted Aliyev as saying on
March 5.

Controversy still surrounds the vote’s context. Some analysts say
that in opting to pull out the troops, Azerbaijan has effectively
sided with Russia, a country which many Azerbaijanis believe backed
ethnic Armenian separatists in the 1988-1994 fighting over Karabakh.

Russia, a strong ally of Serbia, which claims Kosovo as its own
territory, has led opposition to the ethnic Albanian region’s
independence.

"We should remember that Azerbaijani territories have been occupied
with the help of Russian weapons and troops," Rasim Musabekov,
an independent political analyst often critical of the government,
commented in late February.

Musabekov added that the government is wrong to see a connection
between Karabakh and Kosovo. "[T]here is a big difference between the
Kosovo and Nagorno-Karabakh conflicts. The international community
sees Kosovo on the world’s political map, but it does not see
Nagorno-Karabakh there."

A recent United Nations resolution, however, suggests otherwise. On
March 14, in a contentious vote, the UN called for recognition of
Azerbaijan’s right to territorial integrity and for the immediate
withdrawal of Armenian forces "from all the occupied territories of the
Republic of Azerbaijan." Aside from Georgia and Moldova, thirty-seven
countries supported the measure, including four with growing investor
interests in the South Caucasus: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain.

Seven UN members opposed the resolution, including, aside from Armenia,
three members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe’s Minsk Group overseeing negotiations with Armenia about
Karabakh – France, Russia and the United States.

In a recent interview with The Armenian Reporter, US Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Matthew Bryza
termed the resolution "one-sided," adding that it "did not reflect
the fair and balanced nature of the [peace] proposal on the table."

Opposition by Minsk Group members to the resolution has fired
longstanding questions within Azerbaijan about the value of the
OSCE-brokered peace process. Kosovo has merely added to these qualms.

[For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

The Prague Process for resolving the Karabakh conflict includes
an international peacekeeping force being placed on the disputed
territory prior to Armenia withdrawing its troops from the area
bordering Karabakh, notes analyst Ilgar Mammadov.

"We already saw what role the peacekeepers played in Kosovo. They
have been placed in Kosovo with the formal consent of Belgrade,
and by countries recognizing Serbia’s territorial integrity," he
observed. "Nevertheless, the peacekeepers brought in with Belgrade’s
consent became the boundary that Serbia failed to get past when
Albanians declared their independence."

Mammadov believes a similar scenario could occur in Karabakh, if
Azerbaijan agrees to the deployment of international peacekeepers.

"Since we did not need peacekeepers to maintain the cease-fire
in the past 14 years, then why do we need them for the period of
implementation of a peace agreement?"

By withdrawing from Kosovo, Baku makes that question clear, analysts
and government officials believe.

At the same time, though, officials are quick to stress that the
pull-out does not mean a change in Azerbaijan’s relationship with
NATO, or its participation in international peacekeeping operations
in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"Azerbaijan recently doubled its number of peacekeepers in Afghanistan
and we are considering other recommendations. It shows Azerbaijan’s
commitment to international stability and peace," Deputy Foreign
Minister Araz Azimov told journalists on February 28. The country
currently has 45 peacekeepers stationed in Afghanistan under NATO
command.