AZAKHSTAN’S CHAIRMANSHIP TO OSCE NOT TO AFFECT NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT SETTLEMENT
Trend News Agency
May 28 2009
Azerbaijan
Kazakhstan’s chairmanship to the OSCE in 2010 will unlikely
significantly affect the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement,
experts consider.
"Kazakhstan will not be actively involved in the solution of conflicts,
since firstly it does not want to assume great responsibility;
and secondly – currently the Caucasus region is not a priority for
Kazakhstan," said Kazakh expert Dosim Satpayev.
It is planned that in 2010 Kazakhstan will assume chairmanship to
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) – the
world’s largest regional security organizations. The co-chairs of the
OSCE Minsk Group – Russia, France, and the U.S. – have been holding
the peace negotiations on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement,
but they are still unsuccessful.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988
when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian
armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan since 1992,
including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and 7 surrounding districts.
Observers laid their trust in Kazakhstan, as the OSCE chairman,
which may also mediate in the conflict settlement. However, the
experts are skeptical that the country’s chairmanship – a stable
economic partner of Azerbaijan, a neighbor of the Republic in the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) – can somehow affect the
solution of this conflict.
"Despite that the Minsk Group is the structure of the OSCE, the role
of the OSCE chairman has limited opportunities to directly influence
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement," Azerbaijani political
scientist Rasim Musabeyov told Trend News.
However, Musabeyov said that Kazakhstan has first-hand knowledge of
the conflict and about all its complexities.
In early 1990, along with Russia, the country initiated the
establishment of the mediation mission, which was called "Zheleznovodsk
initiative". However, this did not bring adequate results.
Mediatory role of Kazakhstan, as the chairman, is useful to facilitate
this process, "but I would not exaggerate," the Director of the
European Neighborhood, Foreign and Security Policy programme of the
Center for European Policy Studies, Emerson told Trend News in a
telephone conversation from Brussels.
Unlikely the Republic will be actively involved in solving the problem
of relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia, experts think.
Despite the opinion of European expert Michael Emerson that chairing
Kazakhstan will try to reach a solution, other experts doubt it.
"I do not think that when Kazakhstan will chair the OSCE, it will want
to more actively intervene in the processes that we are now observing
in the Caucasus," Director of Risk Assessment Group (Kazakhstan)
Satpayev told Trend News by telephone from Astana.
He said that Kazakhstan does not want to spoil relations with either
Azerbaijan or Armenia, and it is important to maintain the normal
partnership relations with all the Caucasus nations.
In addition, according to experts, to resolve the conflict is not an
easy task.
The co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group – France, United States
and Russia, are more powerful and much better able to resolve this
conflict than Kazakhstan, Musabeyov said.
And if their mediation in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement has
no clear progress, it is unworthy to wait for it from Astana, he said.