KAZAN SUMMIT ‘ONE OF THE LAST CHANCES’ FOR KARABAKH PEACE

news.az
June 21 2011
Azerbaijan

News.Az interviews Russian political scientist Grigoriy Trofimchuk,
first vice president of the Strategic Development Modelling Centre.

How can you describe the current situation over Nagorno-Karabakh,
given statements by the conflict parties that positions on individual
key issues have been reconciled?

It is unclear what key issues they mean. If they mean the exchange
of prisoners and dead bodies, this is not the appropriate level. The
key problem is primarily political control over the land. If, for
example, the land issue is automatically raised after the exchange
of millions of Azerbaijani captives for a million Armenian captives
and an improvement in mutual trust, the optimism of diplomats would
have been created.

The foreign ministries, like any other bureaucratic structures,
need to report regularly on the dynamics, that they exist, including
soothing public concern at the endless negotiation process. But there
are still no dynamics on this issue.

It must cause the concern of the presidents that cannot endlessly
gather in different formats and say good things. The matter is not
that their own nations will complain about them. The West, including
the EU and the United States, will be able to promote progress in the
Karabakh issue. The meeting in Kazan is one of the last chances. But
I don~Rt think that the presidents will use this chance, I don~Rt
believe in miracles, especially when there are no special ideas.

So do you think no serious breakthroughs are expected in the near
future?

The latest conditional progress on Karabakh was the information
campaign over the Armenian-Turkish protocols that did not yield any
results. I think it is, primarily, caused by the fact that Turkey
still fears to take independent steps in the region, though it is
eager to do so and has got as close to it as possible. But silence
and senseless declarations followed.

But again Syria will erupt for Turkey in its neighbourhood and then
it will have no time for the Caucasus.

I have to repeat that little time is left. In the modern global and
extremely hazardous world, no one will allow the Karabakh conflict
to be kept frozen for long. This mine will be exploded, especially
because Iran, Caspian crude and so on are close by. Therefore,
progress will be imminent – the question is just who will make the
progress and who will propose the initiative. In this sense, I am
talking about provocations as well.

For example, already now after numerous statements by Baku about the
possible use of force it is easy to shake the situation, shifting the
blame onto Azerbaijan and everyone will believe it. It is odd that no
one has used this leverage so far. I think Azerbaijan will have to say
“thank you” to Libya that took the blow on itself and distracted world
attention from the final resolution of the Iranian issue, especially
because they could seize oil from Libya as they could from Iran. But
Libya will be utilized soon and then the South Caucasus will again
have to be ready for anything.

How do you think the internal political situation will develop in
Armenia, if the conflict parties do agree on something? It is Yerevan
that must take a decisive step forward since Baku has already done
everything it could.

The Armenian leadership regularly voices a basic thesis that to move in
the direction of change in the occupied regions, it needs guarantees
of security for both the people of those regions and the region as a
whole. For this reason the problem lies with finding easy and clear
formulations to define those guarantees. Diplomats have failed to
find them and Armenia enjoys this benefit.

But if we imagine that Armenia is obliged to transfer at least one of
the occupied districts to Azerbaijan, it will hardly cause serious
protests among the public in Yerevan, other than protests of the
Armenian opposition (especially, the democratic opposition) which
do not have any impact on wide public opinion as elsewhere in the
post-Soviet countries. Yerevan can easily explain to Armenian citizens
that this step strengthens guarantees of security in the region
and remind them that this region unlike Karabakh, Ararat and so on,
has never been part of the program of building “Great Armenia”. This
issue requires correct and accurate propaganda, though not by diplomats
who always remain officials, though with a higher status.

If this occurs in reality, Moscow, Baku and Yerevan will leave no
chances for the West to interfere in the resolution process. The three
capital cities have to think it over now in order to preserve their
influence in the region and, largely, their political sovereignty.

The West benefits from the endless exchange of dead captives and the
intensifying exchanges of fire on the contact line. Even returning
one district region in 50 years to Azerbaijan is an unconditional
and evident move forward for all witnesses.

For Armenia, the hazard may hide where it is not expected. Armenia
also has a market, which sees high, constantly growing prices for
everything. They have prices but no resources. For this reason, in any
moment, they will face the inability to maintain these additional lands
with a vast population living there. It may lead to local rebellion,
since people want to eat, study, work, regardless of any high moral
and patriotic principles.

It is not ruled out that Azerbaijan would have attained more if it had
focused not on the militaristic side of the issue but on promises to
cut prices on essential goods for residents of the occupied districts.

That would be real information warfare.

If in the near future the sides do not fix any agreements, should
we expect a military solution to the conflict, which has been talked
about so much recently?

If Azerbaijan openly undertakes a military solution of the conflict,
it can do so only with the hidden support of Washington. The support
of Ankara or Brussels, even taken altogether, will be insufficient in
this case. But if Washington~Rs support is not open (though otherwise
is impossible), there is always a risk of a repeat of the Georgian
scenario in August 2008, when Georgia was abandoned halfway to
success. Baku has to take this fact into account.

But in the event Azerbaijan takes this risk independently, it may be
isolated from Nakhchivan to balance any possible losses. In this case,
the whole Major Caucasus will rise, which is not profitable to anyone,
including Washington and Brussels. For this reason, if Azerbaijan
is really ready to fulfill its threats, military action should start
through Nakhchivan~Rs militarization and consolidation.

The most likely development is that armed provocation in the region
will cause a clash between Armenia and Azerbaijan which in turn will
help settle the Caucasus problem (and respectively the problem of Iran,
Karabakh, the Caspian Sea and crude) from a distance by throwing a
“bone” to unlucky Armenia or Azerbaijan.

I would say here that provocation fully differs from the open
declaration of war against a neighbouring state, which forms the
whole further picture of possible events.

It is also naïve to think that intensification of NATO structures
in Georgia are exclusively against Russia. Therefore, the small
countries of the South Caucasus – Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia –
should ponder this ambiguous fact.

How can you characterize the current mediation activity of Moscow,
Paris and Washington that are the three main mediators in the conflict?

Moscow must not be put in the same row as Paris and Washington, since
the latter are far away, while Moscow is near the conflict. Events in
South Ossetia showed that Paris is practical leverage in Washington’s
hands to influence the conflict. Therefore, there is no mediation
activity here – there are the interests of Washington and the interests
of Moscow in this region. As I have already said, Washington is just
keeping silent and waiting for the moment to come.