Armenia/Azerbaijan: Has A New Chance Emerged For Karabakh Peace?

ARMENIA/AZERBAIJAN: HAS A NEW CHANCE EMERGED FOR KARABAKH PEACE?
Emil Danielyan

EurasiaNet, NY
Feb 18 2007

Undaunted by their failure to broker a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict last year, international mediators are making another push
for an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace accord.

The U.S., French, and Russian mediators acting under the aegis of the
OSCE Minsk Group hope that their prolonged efforts will at last yield
fruit in the second half of 2007. They regard the months following
the May 12 parliamentary elections in Armenia as another unique
"window of opportunity" to end the 19-year-old conflict.

The Minsk Group’s U.S. co-chair, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
Matthew Bryza, sounded optimistic about the prospects for a Karabakh
peace when he spoke to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on February 7. The
conflicting parties, Bryza said, agree on most of the basic principles
of the settlement plan proposed by the co-chairs. Those basic
principles amount to holding a referendum on self-determination in
the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic years after the liberation
of at least six of the seven Azerbaijani districts surrounding the
disputed enclave that are currently occupied by Armenian forces. "They
don’t agree 100 percent on the basic principles, but they are close,
very close," Bryza said, adding that Armenia and Azerbaijan disagree
only on a number of unspecified "technical issues."

Cautiously Upbeat

Bryza’s comments add context to the cautiously upbeat statement issued
by the three co-chairs on January 29 after their latest tour of the
conflict zone. "The co-chairs urge all parties to sustain this momentum
in the negotiations and to prepare their publics for the necessary
compromises," that statement said, indicating their satisfaction with
the results of their talks in Baku, Yerevan, and Stepanakert.

International hopes for a Karabakh peace accord were similarly
high when Presidents Robert Kocharian of Armenia and Ilham Aliyev of
Azerbaijan met near Paris one year ago. But those two-day negotiations
and a follow-up Armenian-Azerbaijani summit in Bucharest in June 2006
did not produce an agreement, however.

Following the June summit, Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian
said the two presidents failed during both rounds of talks to overcome
one key sticking point that he declined to identify. But statements
by Aliyev after another face-to-face meeting with Kocharian (in Minsk
last November) gave ground for new optimism.

Aliyev told Azerbaijan National Television on November 29 that
since the so-called "Prague process" talks between the Armenian
and Azerbaijani foreign ministers on approaches to resolving the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict began in 2004, the negotiating process has
gone through several stages, and "we are approaching the final stage."

Aliyev said the Minsk talks "were held in a constructive way," and
that "we managed to find a solution to a number of problems we could
not agree on before." He added, however, that "divergences remain on
crucial points," and that further progress "depends on us ourselves,"
presumably meaning the conflict sides, as opposed to the Minsk Group.

Window Of Opportunity

Bryza implied on February 7 that the mediators expect the two
presidents to take the last decisive step to peace during the period
between the Armenian parliamentary elections on May 12 and the start
of campaigning for the presidential ballots due in both Armenia and
Azerbaijan next year. Kocharian has publicly pledged not to cut an
unpopular peace deal before the May ballot.

For observers accustomed to successive setbacks in the Karabakh peace
process, these encouraging signs may appear too good to be true,
especially considering the diametrically opposed positions taken
by Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders in public. Aliyev in particular
continues to insist that Baku will never recognize Karabakh’s 1988
unilateral declaration of secession from the then Azerbaijan SSR,
and can only grant the Armenian-controlled territory "the highest
degree of autonomy." The Minsk Group plan would clearly enable the
NKR’s overwhelmingly Armenian population to legitimize that secession
in the proposed referendum.

The date and practical modalities of such a vote are believed to
be one of the most intractable remaining sticking points, with the
Armenian side saying that it should be held as early as possible,
and the Azerbaijanis reportedly demanding a 15- to 20-year delay.

Armenian sources privy to the peace talks say the final version of
the putative peace accord may not set any date for the referendum,
and instead keep Karabakh under Armenian control for an indefinite
interim period. Azerbaijan would presumably be able not to formally
relinquish its claim to Karabakh in the foreseeable future.

Kelbajar Withdrawal

Those same Armenian sources also say a peace settlement was also
prevented in 2006 by another issue: the time frame for Armenian
withdrawal from Kelbajar, one of the two Azerbaijani districts
sandwiched between Karabakh and Armenia proper. At least until now,
Armenia has said it will only relinquish control of Kelbajar after
the holding of the referendum, a condition that Azerbaijani officials
have publicly rejected.

The Trend news agency quoted Azerbaijan’s Deputy Foreign Minister
Araz Azimov as saying on February 12 the parties are also divided on
the return of Azerbaijani refugees to Karabakh and the status of the
strategic Lachin corridor linking the enclave to Armenia. Yerevan and
Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian leadership insist that Lachin remain under
full Armenian control. According to Azimov, during talks on January
23 in Moscow with his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov,
Armenian Foreign Minister Oskanian rejected a proposal to use the
Lachin corridor jointly with Azerbaijan. But while Azimov (playing
bad cop to his boss’s good cop?) accused Oskanian of adopting an
"extremely tough" position on a number of points, Mammadyarov said on
February 12 simply that he "expected more" from the Moscow talks. And
while Azimov declared there is no point in continuing talks unless the
Armenian side softens its stance, Mammadyarov held out the possibility
that in the event of further progress, it will be possible to discuss
a further meeting between the two presidents, day.az reported.

Whether or not the governments in Baku and Yerevan are really committed
to mutual compromise is another key unanswered question.

Aliyev, for example, has repeatedly predicted that Armenia will be
increasingly unable to compete with his oil-rich country, which is
beginning to reap the benefits of its vast hydrocarbon reserves.

Kocharian and his political allies, for their part, believe that the
Karabakh status quo does not preclude Armenia’s development, pointing
to its double-digit economic growth registered in recent years.

Still, the two leaders have at least one strong incentive to forge
ahead with a compromise settlement this year. The proposed peace deal
envisages a gradual resolution of the Karabakh dispute that would
require a policy continuity in Baku and Yerevan, suggesting that the
West would prefer to avoid regime change in either country. Aliyev will
be up for reelection in late 2008, while observers believe Kocharian
plans to hand over power in 2008 to his likely successor, Defense
Minister Serzh Sarkisian, and remain in government in another capacity.