IRAN OFFERS TO MEDIATE AZERI-ARMENIAN DISPUTE
United Press International
June 11 2008
WASHINGTON, June 11 (UPI) — As oil prices rise relentlessly to
record-high levels, relations between the United States and Iran,
OPEC’s third-largest producer, continue to worsen. Further heightening
investors’ anxieties, speculation about a possible Israeli or
U.S. attack to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions continues to mount.
Despite Washington branding Iran a charter member of the "axis
of evil," in a diplomatic gesture full of portent for the future
of Caspian energy exports, Tehran has offered to mediate one of
the Caucasus region’s longstanding disputes, the Nagorno-Karabakh
clash between Armenia and Azerbaijan. If Iran succeeds, it will have
accomplished something The Bush administration failed to do in one
of its first foreign policy initiatives.
As reported by Azerbaijan’s APA news agency, during a news conference
in Baku, the Azeri capital, on June 5, Iranian Deputy Foreign
Minister Alireza Sheikh-Attar said that Iran is ready to mediate the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict if requested by both sides, noting that while
Iran had earlier attempted to negotiate a resolution of the issue,
"Unfortunately, under the influence of outside forces, our country
was sidelined from the mediatory mission."
A shooting war between the two southern Caucasian nations broke out in
February 1988, as both nations claimed the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave,
then administered by Baku. The rising violence saw the Commission on
Security and Cooperation in Europe (now the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe) in the summer of 1992 create the 11-country
Minsk Group with the aim of mediating a solution to the conflict.
By May 1994, when Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a cease-fire agreement
ending active hostilities, the conflict had caused thousands of
casualties and created hundreds of thousands of refugees on both sides
and left Armenian armed forces occupying swaths of Azeri territory,
including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven neighboring districts. While
14 years later Russia, France and the United States, currently the
Minsk Group co-chairs, are currently holding talks, nothing concrete
has been achieved.
In a largely forgotten U.S. diplomatic initiative, Washington’s
interest in resolving the impasse led the new administration of
U.S. President George W. Bush to convene a diplomatic summit in
April 2001 in Key West, Fla., under OSCE auspices between Armenian
President Robert Kocharian and Azeri President Geidar Aliyev. As with
the earlier Minsk Group efforts, however, the talks went nowhere.
The diplomatic impasse has affected all three countries’ economies,
with only Azerbaijan’s soaring because of its oil revenue. Last year
the Central Intelligence Agency estimated Armenia’s GDP growth rate at
13.7 percent, Azerbaijan’s at 31 percent and Turkey’s at 5.1 percent.
The last couple of years have seen some softening of Yerevan’s
position; on June 5, 2005, the Armenian media noted that Kocharian
announced, "We are ready to continue dialogue with Azerbaijan for
the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and with Turkey on
establishing relations without any preconditions."
Both sides have lost out in the impasse. Armenia was excluded from
the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, but Azerbaijan in turn was forced
to pay a price for its unwillingness to negotiate, as BTC was forced
to take a lengthy detour around Armenia, adding substantially to the
project’s cost and construction delays.
The prize is certainly tempting; the Caspian Sea’s 143,244 square
miles and attendant coastline are estimated to contain as much as 250
billion barrels of recoverable oil, boosted by more than 200 billion
barrels of potential reserves, quite aside from up to 328 trillion
cubic feet of recoverable natural gas.
Needless to say, foreign companies are battling to build more export
pipelines, and Iran has been angling for years to increase its transit
trade of other Caspian nations’ exports, while energy-starved Armenia,
which has no oil reserves and imports virtually all of its needs,
could benefit from improved relations with its oil-rich neighbors to
the east.
Should diplomatic relations normalize, Armenia also could benefit
from transit fees on any pipelines constructed across its territory,
while Iran possibly could sidestep the crippling U.S. ILSA sanctions,
which have largely precluded development of its natural gas reserves,
estimated at more than 26 trillion cubic meters, the world’s second
largest after Russia. Despite such potential riches, a lack of foreign
investment means that Iran currently produces a paltry 460 million
cubic meters of gas per day.
Iran brings a number of negotiating strengths to the table; it
maintains diplomatic relations with both nations, 24 percent of its
population is Azeri, while an estimated 400,000 Armenians reside in
the Islamic Republic. The above considerations give Iran an added
cachet as a possible "honest broker" in negotiations that the Minsk
Group members lack. In a sign of the diplomatic relations between
Armenia and Iran, the new Armenian Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan
recently visited Tehran.
Given the diplomatic barrenness of 16 years of discussions, Iran’s
offer ought to be seriously considered by all interested parties. The
results of a negotiated peace are obvious — the only question is
whether "outside forces" will allow Iran’s efforts to proceed.
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