RFE/RL’s Armenia Service reports that the new European Envoy on the South Caucasus has again underscored the importance the EU places on resolving the long-standing conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the mainly-Armenian populated territory of Nagorno Karabakh. Speaking to reporters after meeting the Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian, Peter Semneby again stated that there is a “window of opportunity” still open this year.
Semneby, who arrived in Yerevan from Baku, said the existing status quo hurts both conflicting parties and the region as a whole. He also reaffirmed the EU’s intention to play a greater role in international efforts to broker a compromise settlement.
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“I conveyed [to Semneby] our view that contrary to various speculations made after [the Armenian-Azerbaijani summit in] Rambouillet, the peace process is alive,” Oskanian said for his part. “We believe that there are still possibilities for continuing and making additional progress in the process.”
According to the report, what happens next depends on the outcome of a visit to Washington by Oskanian’s Azerbaijani counterpart later in the week where he will also meet with the OSCE Minsk Group’s US Chair Steve Mann. Oskanian will be in Moscow around the same time. Unfortunately, however, it still does not look as though Azerbaijan is willing to make concessions in negotiations.
“If they register a convergence of views, there will probably be a visit to the region by the co-chairs, which may be followed by a meeting of the [Armenian and Azerbaijani] foreign ministers,” said Oskanian. “But all of this depends on the results of the upcoming Mammadyarov-Mann meeting.”
Mammadyarov’s deputy Araz Azimov, who was also in Washington last week, indicated at the weekend that Baku remains adamant in rejecting a Minsk Group peace plan that would reportedly legitimize Armenian control over Karabakh. “America should understand and Armenia should remember that the Azerbaijani state not only will disagree with the partition of the lands, but also will prevent it,” Azimov told the official AzerTaj news agency.
Meanwhile, RFE/RL also carries a story from AFP reporting that Turkey still stands by Azerbaijan in the long-running dispute, and it would appear that both countries are relying on the fact that within the next 2-10 years Armenia will be isolated in the region and unable to match increased military spending by Azerbaijan. Unfortunately, it would appear that both are likely to be true.
Next year, Azerbaijan’s military budget is set to hit $1 billion, the size of Armenia’s entire state budget this year.
The dispute over the ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh “should be resolved within the framework of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan,” Sezer told reporters after meeting his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliev. This is “in line with international norms,” Sezer added.
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Both Turkey and Azerbaijan have severed ties with Armenia, closing borders and imposing an economic blockade on Yerevan as a result of the Karabakh dispute. Ankara is under European Union pressure to normalize ties with Armenia but worries that reconciliatory moves sought by the bloc may damage its alliance with Azerbaijan.
Recent news carried by Baku Today also highlights the introduction in Azerbaijan of a new law on mobilization for war. Difficult to say if this is coincidental or whether it really is part of Aliyev’s voiced intention to re-take Karabakh and the surrounding territories by military means if a peaceful solution cannot be found. What isn’t clear is what constitutes an “invasion” and if it can be applied retrospectively.
According to the law, in event of a real armed attack or the threat of a military invasion, the president will immediately declare partial or universal mobilization.
People in the reserves and those who are not eligible to participate in the military draft could be sent to into the armed forces and other special formations to work in civil positions.
Some sources indicate that the stumbling blocks encountered during recent talks in Paris between the Armenian and Azerbaijani Presidents can be considered to be the date for an eventual withdrawal of Armenian forces from Kelbajar and the status of Karabakh itself. The latter is of course what the conflict was all about in the first place, but it would appear that Azerbaijan is not ready to recognize the importance of the right of a people to self-determination over territorial integrity.
So, it would appear that on the one hand, Azerbaijan doesn’t understand the need to compromise and believe in the territorial integrity of their country while many of those involved even in conflict resolution and peacebuilding initiatives in Armenia don’t appear to understand that for Azerbaijan to officially cede Karabakh, Armenians must be willing to withdraw from five or six possible regions out of seven surrounding the territory which were only intended as a “buffer zone” anyway.
So what does this mean?
If Azerbaijan builds up its military at a faster pace than Armenia which seems inevitable I think there is only one likelihood. That is, there could be war within the next 5-10 years and I don’t think that anyone should take that lightly because next time it will involve proper armies and possibly an outright declaration of war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. And while the outcome might be uncertain, one thing is.
Thousands will die and the resulting peace deal would probably be what is on the table now. In the worst case scenerio I believe that Armenia could lose Karabakh.
The Armenian government says that it requires only three things in a peace deal with Azerbaijan. That is, Karabakh would be separate from Azerbaijan, it should have a land border with Armenia, and that international security guarantees are in place. I tend to agree with that position, and in the meantime would suggest that both Armenian and Azerbaijani alike read Tom de Waal’s Myths and Realities of the Karabakh War.
The failure to resolve the conflict over the mountainous territory of Nagorny Karabakh remains the most serious problem in the south Caucasus, blighting the peaceful development of the whole region.
Almost nine years after Armenians and Azerbaijanis signed the ceasefire agreement that halted the war in 1994, and ten years after the first United Nations resolution on the conflict on April 30, 1993 the dispute is no nearer resolution.
One reason it remains unsettled is that the combatants have fostered myths and propaganda, which reinforce their – mistaken – perception that they are the guiltless victims of the conflict, while the other side is the dangerous aggressor.
As most of you know, de Waal is the author of Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War, and not only did I accompany him for some of his fieldwork, but I also interviewed him on his research soon afterwards.
[…] why was I interested in writing a book on Karabagh? Well, I had been to the region a couple of times and was aware that there really was nothing in English, or in any language for that matter, that looked at the conflict from both sides. Instead, there were quite a few propagandist books, or one-sided books to be kinder, which looked at the conflict from only one perspective. Both sides were living in alternate realities and it was an intellectual and personal challenge to go back to the beginning of the conflict in 1988 to see if I could come up with an outsider’s view of why the conflict started and what’s happened since. I suppose that if you can understand the symptoms of the disease, you can possibly find a cure. The problem with Karabagh has been that too many people have suggested solutions for the conflict without really understanding the symptoms.
The full interview can be read online here.
