Having refused to attend the last meeting of Euronest held in Yerevan in 2015, the arrival of two Azerbaijani MPs, Tahir Mirkishili and Soltan Mammadov, in Armenia this week was the first in a decade. According to one regional analyst, their participation was an achievement in itself and others might also wonder if this also isn’t a precedent for the resumption of other exchanges between the two countries following the 2020 Armenia-Azerbaijan war over Nagorno Karabakh.
In the past, delegations of Armenian MPs have also attended Euronest meetings in Baku in 2012 and 2017 while even the religious leaders of both countries visited each other in 2010-2011. There have also been civil society, media, sporting, and cultural exchanges, though these became significantly less over the 9 years preceding the 2020 war. The lack of such mutual visits were just one warning sign that war was likely inevitable.
Of course, the visit did not go ahead without some problems. The road from Zvartsnots airport to downtown Yerevan was temporarily blocked by a small group of war veterans on the day of the MP’s arrival, for example. A small group of activists from the Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutyun’s Armenian Youth Federation (AYF) also picketed the hotel where Mirkishili and Mammadov were staying.
Likewise, opposition members of the Armenian Euronest delegation refused to dine with their Azerbaijani counterparts and one Yerevan restaurant canceled the reservation for a Euronest delegation dinner although others did not. Some AYF activists were also detained last night on charges of hooliganism, again outside the hotel where Mirkishili and Mammadov were staying. Armenian police acted swiftly to maintain public order.
Such actions, however, were hardly unexpected, however. There were also demonstrations against the arrival of Armenian MPs to Baku and in 2004, Azerbaijani police dispersed an demonstration by members of the Karabakh Liberation Organisation (KLO), a group of war veterans, after they attempted to a storm a Baku hotel where two Armenian soldiers were attending a NATO conference in Azerbaijan.
There were also some other controversial incidents during this year’s Euronest. Usage of the Irevan instead of Yerevan on social media, as well as a comment regarding the origins of the Blue Mosque in the city, by the Azerbaijani MPs irked many Armenians while the use of a map by one Armenian businesswoman of the seven regions formerly under Armenian control and now returned to Azerbaijan being part of Nagorno Karabakh angered Azerbaijanis.
Nonetheless, the two Azerbaijani MPs thanked their Armenian hosts many times during the event for their hospitality, and in his opening remarks for a panel on the security situation in the South Caucasus, German MEP Helmet Geuking attempted to set the right tone.
“The Nagorno Karabakh conflict is the longest running conflict in the post-Soviet space. The war of 2020 has dramatically changed the situation on the ground,” he said. “The Eastern Partnership aims to bring Armenia and Azerbaijan and we should use this fact to promote regional peace. In fact, the visit of our colleagues from Azerbaijan here in Yerevan for this Euronest session is most certainly the first visit of Azerbaijani MPs to Armenia after the war.
Let us hope, therefore, that it can contribute at least a little bit to finding some mutual understanding and creating an atmosphere of trust. I would like to urge all members to approach this debate precisely in this spirit which I’ve just set out.”
Those Armenian MPs aligned with the former regimes of Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan, and now the opposition, however, had other ideas, and appeared to attend the event only in order to launch blistering attacks on Azerbaijan and the two Azerbaijani MPs live on camera for all to see and hear. Sadly, and while the sides are not expected to agree with each other on many issues, there was no attempt to engage in discussion or dialogue.
The only saving grace, perhaps, from the session were the opening presentations of two regional analysts, Yerevan-based Director of the Regional Studies Center (RSC) Richard Giragosian and Baku-based International Crisis Group (ICG) analyst Zaur Shiriyev. First to speak, attending the even in person, was Giragosian.
“From an Armenian perspective, there are three core elements,” he said. “Armenia’s commitment to diplomatic re-engagement, the return of the OSCE’s Minsk Group as the only diplomatic entity empowered to facilitate a negotiated resolution to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. This is especially important because we are in a fragile, delicate, post-war reality, but far from a post-conflict landscape.”
Giragosian also warned that the 2020 war was a dangerous precedent for the region, seemingly vindicating the use of force over diplomacy. Instead, he said, there needs to be a “renewed commitment to diplomatic negotiations in order to transform a Russian-imposed ceasefire into a more lasting, durable peace process envisaging both status and security.” Giragosian also highlighted the need for Azerbaijan to release the remaining detainees held by Baku.
“The first imperative is the human cost of the war that remains lingering,” said Giragosian. “That is, the incomplete return of all prisoners of war and detainees from Azerbaijani captivity. Only then can Armenia begin to move beyond the war. The second imperative is de-escalation along the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan and […] the necessity to construct a legal institutional framework for border delimitation and demarcation.”
Speaking later, Mammadov reiterated that for Azerbaijan, there are no remaining PoWs being held by Azerbaijan. Those in detention were captured following the November 2020 ceasefire agreement. He did, however, agree that the issue of demarcating the border with Armenia was necessary. “Azerbaijan has unfrozen all relations between our countries,” he said, saying this would bring “peace and security, prosperity and economic development.”
For Azerbaijan, the two visiting MPs said the war is over.
Such an opinion, however, was not that of the European Union, one MEP noted and Giragosian also stressed the need to re-engage the OSCE Minsk Group in order to find a lasting and durable peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. “This is an opportunity with our Azerbaijani colleagues,” he said.
Speaking after Giragosian via video link from Baku, Shiriyev also agreed that the issue of border delimitation and demarcation was a pressing on, but also raised the situation of over 600,000 Azerbaijanis who had to flee their homes during the war of the early 1990s. Virtually nothing remained in the seven regions formerly under Armenian control, something that Mirkishili also raised as someone originating from there.
The danger of landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) remained a real one, continued Shiriyev, and also affected communities on both sides on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. There was the need for technical and financial support in order to move forward. He also said that by opening energy as well as transport corridors would benefit all countries of the region, including Armenia.
“It is not any longer an issue between Azerbaijan and Armenia,” said Shiriyev. “It is a regional issue and one of the important game changers on this issue is the Turkish-Armenian normalisation process, something Giragosian had also stressed earlier. Any positive movement between Turkey and Armenia will open a much more constructive environment for peace talks or discussion between Azerbaijan and Armenia.”
The Minsk Group, he added, was not seen positively by Baku so there is the need to reimagine how it would work and what agenda it would serve. Confidence building measure were vital and the European Union could help here by “not only to support traditional peacebuilding tools, but there also needs to be more focus on media engagement because […] the societies have lived for 30 years in a state of enmity. This can only change with the help of the media.”
Despite the confrontational attitude of MPs representing the Armenian opposition later, the head of the Euronest Armenian delegation and a member of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party, Maria Karapetyan, was more reasoned, professional, and articulate.
“I want to make our agenda very clear,” she started. “Following the devastating 44-day war in 2020, Armenia chose the path of new snap elections and a democratic process to resolve our political internal crisis and also to understand what kind of a mandate do the people of Armenia vest us with to continue our path and the voice of the Armenian people has been very clear. It is rule of law internally and era of peace externally.”
According to Karapetyan, there are several items on Armenia’s agenda.
The first is to unblock all economic and transport links in the region. “This is not only an economic issue, but also a security one,” she said. “We believe that interdependence will create an incentive for the non-resumption of violence in the South Caucasus.”
The second item on the agenda, she continued was to delimit and demarcate the Armenia-Azerbaijan border in parallel with the withdraw of the armed forces of both countries from the border areas. This process should start immediately. There was also the need to allow international organisations unfettered access to the region to monitor the state of cultural heritage sites.
Karapetyan also stressed the need to return any Armenians still held captive by Azerbaijan. “There are still Prisoners of War in Baku and we want them to come home,” she said. “Armenia has returned all Prisoners of War immediately following the 44-day war in 2020, and we’ve also returned all landmine maps to Azerbaijan, so we also hope that our citizens will come home as soon as possible.”
“The Nagorno Karabakh conflict is still not resolved,” she also said, “but when we reiterate that the Nagorno Karabakh is not resolved we do not intend to solicit international support to perpetuate this conflict. We want to solicit international support to resolve this conflict to reach a state of sustainable, permanent peace in the South Caucasus.
And finally, the Armenia-Turkey normalisation process, as separate as we see this process from the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, it is undeniable that there are interconnections here. We also are in favour of this process and we want to see […] the opening of the border between Armenia and Turkey and […] the establishment of diplomatic relations.”
