HISTORY OF PEACE PROCESS DISRUPTIONS: STARRING ARMENIA
Today’s Zaman
July 14 2011
Turkey
The last several years of ongoing negotiations regarding
Nagorno-Karabakh have seen intense emotions brought to both sides of
the conflict. Mediated by several countries within the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Minsk Group’s framework and
outside it, including the United States, Russia and Iran, the peace
talks have yet to yield substantial results, not only in resolving
the territorial conflict but in rebuilding trust between the two
neighboring nations of Armenia and Azerbaijan.
A great deal of blame is laid upon the conflicting parties each and
every time talks are held with the participation of the leaders of
OSCE Minsk Group co-chair states. The recent Kazan meeting was no
exception. As though it had been predetermined that the talks were
bound to fail, officials, analysts and the media are always prepared
to storm the mass media with terms like “cease-fire violations,”
“unconstructive stance” and “disruption of the peace talks.” The
abundance of such language in the media in the days following a round
of talks causes inescapable moral nausea.
More normal would be to hear both sides of a conflict accuse each
other of unconstructive positions during peace talks, with mediators
stopping short of blaming either side. However, the magnitude of the
growing accusatory rhetoric from both the Armenian and Azerbaijani
sides makes us wonder which side is more likely to sabotage and disrupt
the peace process. A short list of disruptions to the peace process
in this particular conflict begins very early, before the Soviet
Union officially ceased to exist, and has a lot to offer for analysis.
In late 1991, three-and-a-half years after the Armenian Soviet
Socialist Republic (SSR) unilaterally announced its unconstitutional
annexation of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO), a part of
the Azerbaijan SSR, the leadership of the sovereign Russian Federation
led by Boris Yeltsin and Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan spearheaded
a peacemaking mission to resolve the escalating bloody conflict in
Nagorno-Karabakh. The agreement was finally reached after a four-day
visit of the Russian-led peacemaking team to Baku, Ganja, Khankendi
(Stepanakert) and Yerevan, and under it the Armenian government led by
Levon Ter-Petrossian formally renounced all of its territorial claims
in Azerbaijan. These accords, signed on Sept. 23, 1991 and later to be
known as the Zheleznovodsk Accords, committed both sides to peaceful
resolution of the conflict, disarming the conflicting parties, and
allowing for the return of refugees and internally displaced persons
(IDPs) and the restoration of law and order while the peacemakers
continued to seek ways of resolution.
Everything seemed to work out fine until one cold November night. On
the evening of Nov. 20, 1991, a Soviet helicopter carrying a
peacemaking team of 22 high-ranking officials from Kazakhstan, Russia
and Azerbaijan, along with journalists and crew members, and excluding
any Armenian officials, was shot down by Armenian militants over the
Azerbaijani village of Qarakend in the Khojavend district. All on
board died. After the public burial of the victims in Baku on Nov. 22,
Azerbaijan would cease all negotiations with Armenia and abolish the
autonomous status of NKAO on Nov. 27, establishing its own direct
rule over Karabakh.
The disruption of the Zheleznovodsk Accords led to an escalation of
the conflict. In early December, Kerkijahan, a suburb of Khankendi,
saw extreme violence against the Azerbaijani civilian population. The
shooting down of civilian helicopters transporting Azerbaijani
civilians to and from Shusha would follow in January 1992.
Renewed efforts to mediate peace talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia
were initiated by Iran in early February 1992 in what came to be
known as “shuttle diplomacy” in the Caucasus. Foreign Minister Ali
Akbar Velayeti visited Baku, Yerevan and Khankendi, trying to strike
a peace deal between the warring parties amid the eruption of military
activity and alleged ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijani civilians in the
villages of Qaradaghli, Malibeyli and Qushchular in Karabakh. However,
the peace talks were to stop with the escalation of war crimes,
when 613 Azerbaijani civilians were massacred by Armenian forces
in the town of Khojaly and its outskirts, just a short drive north
of Khankendi. Under pressure from the opposition and the public,
Azerbaijani President Ayaz Mutalibov was forced to resign, halting
all mediated negotiations with Armenia.
The peace mediation efforts were renewed with Velayeti revisiting
both countries in March, and eventually arranging a trilateral
meeting in Tehran on May 7, 1992. At that meeting interim Azerbaijani
President and Parliament Speaker Yagub Memmedov, Armenian President
Ter-Petrossian and Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani signed
the Joint Statement of Heads of State, otherwise known as the Tehran
Communique, which sealed the commitment of both parties to peace,
inviolability of borders and finding a solution to the refugee crisis.
However, as the meeting was taking place, Armenia was making different
plans, preparing for a major assault on Shusha, the only remaining
Azerbaijani-populated town in Nagorno-Karabakh. On May 8, pending a
peace deal, undefended Shusha was attacked by and fell to Armenian
forces.
Although the Iranian envoy, Mahmood Vaezi, travelled to Baku to urge
a return to negotiations in mid May, Armenia proved its inability to
sustain peace with its occupation of Lachin on May 18, 1992. Betrayed
by this disruption of the peace process, Iran discontinued its
mediation efforts with a harshly critical message condemning Armenia’s
action in changing its border by force. All peace talks were suspended.
Given this reputation for disruption and sabotage of the peace process,
some experts tend to place the Armenian parliament shooting of October
1999, which followed compromises from both sides earlier that year in
an US-sponsored peace talks in Key West, in the category of activities
targeted to undermine the peace process.
Although military activities have largely ceased except for the
occasional exchange of sniper fire, and all terrorist activity is
at an end, the fact that the Armenian leadership has not worked
credibly to build consensus and trust between the parties shows its
lack of will to commit to peace. Hence the continuous disruptions
of the peace process in various shapes and forms which interfere
with regional development at large. All mediation efforts by Russia,
Iran and the US have so far been in vain. Armenia, which was ranked
by Forbes magazine after Madagascar as the second worst economy in
the world just this month, should seriously reconsider its position
within the peace process for the sake of its own economy and its so
far unpromising future among developing countries.
*Yusif Babanly is the co-founder and secretary of the US Azeris Network
(USAN) and a member of the board of directors of Azerbaijani American
Council.