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  • Vladimir Kazimirov: Conformism to whims and "creeping" concessions r

    Vladimir Kazimirov: Conformism to whims and "creeping" concessions
    resulted in a deadlock in Karabakh peace process

    Regnum, Russia
    July 18 2006


    The report on Karabakh presented by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs
    to the OSCE Permanent Council and their recent statements have shed
    some light on the content of the private consultations between the
    Azeri and Armenian presidents and FMs on the sensitive points of the
    Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) conflict settlement.

    The objective of the co-chairs was not only to report on their work and
    to press on the leaders of the conflicting parties, but also to start
    "making their people ready for peace" instead of them. Now they are
    discussing the pluses and minuses of the peace process for each side,
    but if they actually want to ensure peace, they should better give
    this problem a wider approach.

    Some media have presented the texts of the report and the statements
    with lots of inaccuracies in translation, which is giving rise to
    false rumors. For as long as more Armenians and Azeris know Russian
    better than English, such documents should be made in Russian. They
    in Vienna translate into English more expertly than they in the South
    Caucasus - from English.

    I would like to start with seemingly formal cavil at the co-chairs'
    texts. They should better abstain from using in vain such significant
    terms as "principles" and "agreement." Here the question is hardly
    about "basic principles," let alone "framework agreement." The
    co-chairs have given just general contours rather than specific -
    and by no means new - principles.

    True, they are trying to apply two real principles in Karabakh:
    non-application of force and threats of force and peaceful resolution
    of disputes. Here they must be given all-out support!

    It is very early to speak about "framework agreement" yet. Even if the
    parties agreed on specific "principles," it would be just political
    arrangement between the two parties rather than final agreement. It
    would take a long time to negotiate each element into a full-value
    legally-binding agreement.

    Another problem is the circle of agreeing parties. It doesn't befit
    the co-chairs to hope that Armenia will talk Karabakh into agreement.
    How can one hope to oblige the Karabakh Armenians to withdraw their
    troops from the five districts outside NK unless they also sign the
    agreement? And what a line they should be withdrawn to? Full agreement
    requires consent of all conflicting parties (like was the case during
    the May 12, 1994 truce). There is no other way, like it or not.

    In this light, it is surprising to see the careless mention of
    "two parties," "both parties" in the Vienna text. Three parties to
    the Karabakh conflict is something that has long been recognized in
    OSCE documents and by the OSCE MG co-chairs. Who and when has changed
    this approach? Where is the decision? Conformism to somebody's whims,
    "creeping" concessions just for continuing, at least, some kind of
    talks leads to deadlocks and failures. And we can see the result.

    The co-chairs say they are successors just to what has been done in the
    last nine years. Strange dating, isn't it! The US and France joined
    in 1997, but Russia had already been both co-chair and independent
    mediator by that time. There had been other chairs and co-chairs in
    the OSCE MG too. A whole range of settlement ideas was worked out long
    ago. And the whole work of the mediators is based on the cease-fire
    agreement attained through Russia' mediation in 1994.

    Let's proceed to the main point - to the gist of the problems. One
    can't start from peace settlement (from withdrawing troops from
    occupied territories) and then ... come what may. Peace process
    sustainability and guarantees are mentioned just casually as
    something closing the primary measures, while the first and foremost
    "unconditional condition" (sine qua non) must be the absolute refusal
    by all the conflicting parties to use force and to make any attempts
    to resume war. This may require international affirmation - perhaps,
    by the UN Security Council. This must not be left just outlined but
    unfinished. This is a kind of "zero cycle" - something to be finished
    before the beginning of the "first stage."

    The key source of threat to the Karabakh peace process is Azerbaijan,
    who can't put up with its failures during that war. This is generally
    known and can be seen with the naked eye: bellicose statements, calls
    for arms race and revenge, encouraged hostility towards Armenians,
    breach of contacts with them. In fact, Baku rejects the co-chairs'
    proposals more frequently and strongly. That's why the co-chairs
    should closely follow Azerbaijan's positions and arguments to see
    and to show what and why is unacceptable and inappropriate in them.

    What the co-chairs propose now is "most of the territories in exchange
    for promise of referendum on NK's status (without saying exactly when
    and how). This proposal specifies only the withdrawal of Armenians
    from five districts, leaving almost everything substantial from the
    rest in total uncertainty. It is naive to expect that the parties
    will agree on the referendum later. So, it means there will be no
    referendum at all. This would leave unsettled the key problem of the
    conflict, the status of NK, the problems of Qalbajar and Lachin and
    the selfsame potential danger of new war - but this is exactly what is
    inadmissible. The co-chairs should move farther than that in the very
    first agreement (by both ensuring the "zero cycle" and elaborating,
    at least, some ground terms of the referendum).

    This must not be left until later. People's will is decisive for
    determining the status of NK. In a sensitive and conflict-prone region
    like the South Caucasus, the international community must discourage
    any attempts to settle problems by threats or blood. This is equally
    applicable to the recent past - the military success of Armenians in
    1992-1994 - and, especially, to the future - the absurd revenge dreams
    of some Azeris - even though we know the results of both the pre-war
    referendum and the "bullet voting." This problem needs civilized
    approach with no military confrontation. One must not regard Karabakh
    as just somebody's territory and ignore the opinion of its people.

    Law rather than force must decide here.

    Baku refers to its Constitution saying that referendum in Azerbaijan
    is possible only on a nationwide scale. However, they forget that
    they adopted this constitution in late 1995 exactly to prevent people
    in Karabakh and other regions from expressing their will. The use
    of basic law as just a weapon for political propaganda may recoil
    in irreversible change of it, particularly, in this point. In fact,
    any outcome of the dispute over NK will require drastic changes in
    the Azeri Constitution.

    If Baku is actually so zealous in observing its Constitution,
    then it should also more often remind its people about Article 9 of
    the same Constitution saying that war must not be a way to resolve
    international conflicts.

    One more inaccuracy is the neglect of the succession from the
    Azeri SSR - something that is now preventing Baku from asserting its
    "legacy." The authors of the Constitution 1995 were so eager to avoid
    any mention of the Azeri SSR that when abrogating the Constitution 1978
    they even failed to give their new republic a legally correct name. So,
    the trick with the Constitution is not working out. Today, voting on
    their own status are only those whom it concerns directly rather than
    indirectly (Quebec rather than Canada; Catalonia rather than Spain).

    Concerning the referendum itself. Why put off the date of referendum
    for as many as 10-15 years (i.e. for the period after the second term
    of the Azeri president). Why can't they hold the referendum 4-5 years
    after they start implementing the cherished agreement? Of course,
    the Azeris who lived in Karabakh before the war and their children
    born there should also be allowed to vote. They should be allowed
    to go back to their homes, but also to know under what authorities
    they are going back. They may as well vote from distance (the way
    they did during the last parliamentary elections) lest there might
    be any incidents leading to escalating tensions and failing referendum.

    The co-chairs should not avoid these issues (nor keep them secret, or
    leave them until later). The remaining problems are not so disputable
    even though they too will require persistence from both the parties
    and the mediators.

    The right to voluntary return of displaced persons and refugees to
    their former homes is one of the axioms of settlement, but - only
    for all sides. If those people refuse to return they should have the
    right to compensation. All districts should be deeply demilitarized
    before the finalization of NK's status. The security of the returnees
    should be ensured by peacekeepers from outside and sufficient civil
    police forces from inside.

    In order to make their peacekeeping operation effective and compact,
    the mediators should deploy international observers along two lines
    (the present contact line and the external line of withdrawal) and 2-3
    mobile shock groups in between. The key task of those groups would
    be to prevent any attempts to wreck the demilitarization process by
    any of the parties and to react to "spontaneous" actions by civilians
    (this mechanism is not new). By the time of the agreement signing,
    the parties will have to determine the national composition of the
    observers and peacekeepers.

    By their slyness the parties to the Karabakh conflict hinder the
    co-chairs in their search for solutions, but the latter are so tactful
    that they are sometimes "ashamed" to call "a spade a spade." For the
    former co-chairs, things are much easier. The parties have created
    lots of myths and propaganda tricks about the conflict.

    Some people like showing the exterior and hiding the interior: they
    cry about occupation but are silent about its origin. Today Azeris
    are giving a humanitarian overtone to their demands for eliminating
    occupation and repatriating refugees. They are blaming Armenians
    for occupation but are covering their own sins: their persistent
    reluctance to stop war in 1992-1994 (they broke cease fire agreements
    for four times! and shirked peace initiatives) (Armenians also dodged
    but never avoided such agreements). Now they face the music: loss of
    seven districts and hundreds of thousands of refugees. How it all
    began is a taboo subject in Azerbaijan as it casts a big shadow on
    Elchibey and an even bigger shadow on the all-national leader.

    Today Azerbaijan appeals to the four UN SC resolutions 1993 and
    demands their observance, but neither Armenians nor Azeris themselves
    have so far observed any single requirement from these resolutions
    (except for the cease-fire). It was exactly Baku who for a whole year
    ignored the key requirement of all the resolutions by trying to take
    upper hand by force (and it was then that the UN SC stopped making
    resolutions on Karabakh at all). A few days ago the former advisor of
    the Azeri presidents Vafa Guluzade said: "The UN SC resolutions must
    be observed, full stop!" Did he advise this to Elchibey and Heydar
    Aliyev in 1993-1994? Or, probably, they refused to listen to him?

    If it was actually a matter of humanity - the way they in Baku say -
    they would have long liberated some of the districts and taken back
    hundreds of thousands of refugees, in the meantime, considering the
    return of the others, including of 45,000 residents of NK. It might
    seem that the gaping discrepancy in figures would urge Baku to show
    flexibility.

    Nothing of the sort! So, it turns out that their point is not solely
    the sufferings of the refugees. In fact, the co-chairs have failed to
    get the conflicting parties to directly admit that the status of NK
    is the key disputed problem. Everybody in the world understands this,
    but not everybody concerned admits: each side says that Karabakh
    is "indisputably" its own territory - something only its present
    and former residents can say. If they recognized the key subject of
    their dispute, this would make a civilized democratic resolution much
    easier. Today everybody cares for democracy, don't they?

    Putting the blame for the loss of Karabakh on the People's Front of
    Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev perfectly understood that he could not get
    it back and was close to swapping it for the occupied territories. He
    just sought some compensation (like corridor via Meghri) and a decent
    way to formalize the deal. He stopped when he saw that his supporters
    were leaving him.

    For the present Azeri president concessions (something that is really
    indispensable for resolution) are even more dangerous. Insuring
    himself against agreements, Ilham Aliyev is raising the demands: now
    he refuses "to yield" even Karabakh but, at the same time, he avoids
    normal ways to settle the related dispute. He contradicts his own
    self: he first says that his patience is not limitless and then calls
    for patience in order to gain strength and to force Armenians into
    capitulation. He is also contradictory on peace and war (not mentioning
    that war is absolutely incompatible with the Azeri Constitution and
    that the relapse of violence may have extremely negative consequences
    for both sides). There is also an obvious reluctance to understand
    the specificity of the tectonic epoch of collapse of the USSR and
    other states in Europe and no less obvious preference of general
    wordings about justice, international law and territorial integrity
    (something more like spells) to specific discussions and concrete
    arguments. Hardly any leader of nation can feed his domestic public
    opinion with such products, not mentioning exporting them abroad.

    This all makes peace agreement impossible and condemns the co-chairs
    to a forced pause and half-truth - and the displaced persons ("over
    million"!) to further vegetation.

    With all my respect for my co-chair-colleagues, I dare say that
    they should more actively engraft the commitment to peace and
    non-application of force in the conflicting parties - something they
    really should do instead of ramming settlement recipes. Azerbaijan and
    Armenia have repeatedly undertaken these commitments - particularly,
    before the OSCE - and how are they honoring them? In fact, they are
    breaking them directly and repeatedly by continuing mutual threats.

    That's what the mediators should give not only the rest of 2006 but
    also the following two years too, if they really want to come as close
    as possible to real peace agreement. And this does not obligatorily
    require consideration by G8 now and even by UN SC for the time being.

    Vladimir Kazimirov - Ambassador; in 1992-1996 head of Russia's
    mediatory mission; plenipotentiary representative of the Russian
    President on Nagorno Karabakh; member and co-chair of the OSCE Minsk
    Group from Russia; presently, deputy chairman of the Association of
    Russian Diplomats.

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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