Washington Post
July 8 2011

Nagorno-Karabakh wants a seat at the table

By Will Englund, Updated: Friday, July 8, 9:22 PM

STEPANAKERT, Nagorno-Karabakh – For more than a decade, Russia, the
United States and various European organizations have been trying to
sponsor a framework peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan
that would finally settle the dispute over this mountainous enclave.
But Nagorno-Karabakh itself doesn’t have a seat at the table, and its
president says that must change.

Without the de facto republic’s direct participation, Bako Sahakyan
said during an interview at his office here, no settlement is
possible.

Nagorno-Karabakh, where ethnic Armenians were in the majority,
declared its independence from Azerbaijan in 1991 and effectively
broke free in 1994, after a cease-fire ended a bloody war that cost
thousands of lives on both sides. Since then no country has recognized
it, and it has relied on Armenia, which also took part in the war, to
represent it at the protracted negotiations.

`Nagorno-Karabakh is ready for compromise,’ Sahakyan said, but it has
to have the opportunity `to discuss the issue with Azerbaijan
directly.’

Some shooting continues across the line separating Nagorno-Karabakh
and Azerbaijani forces, with several casualties every year, and there
is always the danger that an incident could quickly escalate.

The talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan, sponsored most recently by
the so-called Minsk Group, which consists of Russia, France and the
United States, have been focused on a compromise that would involve
the return of some land to Azerbaijan in exchange for recognition and
self-determination for Nagorno-Karabakh. International security
guarantees would also play an important role.

But Azerbaijan has so far balked at the idea of Nagorno-Karabakh
becoming permanently independent. It argues that it lost 20 percent of
its territory in the war, and that hundreds of thousands of
Azerbaijanis who were displaced want to return to their homes.

For its part, Nagorno-Karabakh says it won’t give up land if that
means it must retreat to indefensible borders.

Officials familiar with the Minsk Group deliberations say it is clear
that any settlement will have to be accepted by Nagorno-Karabakh, but
that’s a problem for the next phase – which is unlikely to come
anytime soon.

The latest round of negotiations was held in the Russian city of Kazan
on June 24, and broke up without results. Some Nagorno-Karabakh
officials say that failure shows it’s time to try a new approach:
giving them a seat at the negotiating table.

Nagorno-Karabakh didn’t pursue that role from the start because, when
the talks got underway, its former president, Robert Kocharian, had
just been elected president of Armenia – on a promise not to betray
his homeland. Nagorno-Karabakhis thought they could trust him to look
out for their interests, but, a decade later, some officials suggest
that was a mistake in strategy. They say this even though the current
president of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, is also a former
Nagorno-Karabakh chief executive.

Armenia, they argue, has its own interests, which aren’t always
congruent with Nagorno-Karabakh’s.

Part of the difference is that Nagorno-Karabakh began agitating for
independence in 1988, three years before the collapse of the Soviet
Union, and that it then declared independence in 1991 before either
Armenia or Azerbaijan did.

`They didn’t get freedom first, and then independence,’ said
Nagorno-Karabakh’s foreign minister, Georgy Petrosyan, referring to
Armenia proper. `They didn’t get freedom in their heads, a freedom
that would allow them to appreciate independence. In that sense,
Karabakh has had a more advantageous experience.’

Masis Mayilian, who was deputy foreign minister in the de facto
government here, and a onetime candidate for president, said the
problem with the Minsk process is that it’s based on what he considers
a fundamental flaw: In 1991, the international community decided to
recognize the Soviet-era borders of the newly independent states. That
is why Nagorno-Karabakh hasn’t been recognized, hasn’t been included
in the talks, and is officially still considered part of Azerbaijan,
even though it declared independence before the Soviet breakup.

`The Minsk Group could be effective,’ Mayilian said, `but as long as
they work based on a mistaken premise, they put the brakes on the
process.’

At the same time, others here argue that not taking part in the
negotiations gives Nagorno-Karabakh the ultimate veto right over any
compromise.

Sahakyan, in arguing for inclusion, said he wants nonetheless to be
careful not to torpedo the Minsk Group process altogether. Just having
the talks going on has helped bring Nagorno-Karabakh a certain measure
of peace and stability, he said.

`We value any such meeting, even in a distorted format, and these
meetings will bring closer Nagorno-Karabakh’s participation in these
talks,’ he said.

This article was developed in cooperation with the Pulitzer Center on
Crisis Reporting.