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ANKARA: Inter-Religious Dialogue Around Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict

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  • ANKARA: Inter-Religious Dialogue Around Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict

    INTER-RELIGIOUS DIALOGUE AROUND NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT
    by ZAUR SHIRIYEV

    Today's Zaman
    Dec 9 2011
    Turkey

    International media have a long history of presenting political events
    in terms of their religious context.

    Reports on the recent Egyptian elections, for example, cast the
    election results as an "Islamist win"; political commentary was shaped
    by the parties' religious backgrounds. Similar tendencies were seen in
    the Caucasus during the 1990s, where ethnic conflicts were portrayed
    as religious divisions.

    Recently, a meeting of the presidium of the Inter-Religious Council
    of the Commonwealth Independent States was held in Yerevan, Armenia,
    on Nov. 29-30. Catholicos Garegin II (head of the Armenian Apostolic
    Church), Sheikh ul-Islam Allahshukur Pashazade (grand mufti of the
    Caucasus) and Russian Patriarch Kirill II all attended the presidium
    meeting in Yerevan, and held a trilateral meeting.

    Some international observers were surprised that Pashazade visited
    Yerevan, especially given that there were debates in both Azerbaijan
    and Armenia about what the meeting would offer on the resolution of the
    Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. After the meeting, Garegin II sent a letter
    to Pashazade in which he emphasized the importance of discussions
    between regional religious leaders with regard to resolving key
    regional issues, including the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Pashazade
    proposed during the meeting that the spiritual leaders should also
    meet at the front line between the Azerbaijan and Armenian armies,
    a proposal that was accepted by the Armenian church.

    Over the past year and a half, there appears to have been renewed
    interest in engaging Armenia and Azerbaijan's religious leaders in the
    peace process, even if only on a symbolic level. On April 26, 2010,
    Catholicos of All Armenians Garegin II attended a meeting of world
    religious leaders in Azerbaijan upon the invitation of Azerbaijani
    Shiite leader Sheikh al-Islam Pashazade. During his visit, Catholicos
    Garegin II met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and went to
    pray in an abandoned Armenian church in Baku. Garegin II's visit to
    the Armenian Church of St. Gregory the Illuminator in central Baku also
    raised an important direction of potential collaboration and mutually
    beneficial confidence-building measures: the joint preservation of
    cultural monuments and heritage.

    During my recent conversation with Onnik Krikorian, an Armenian
    journalist, he suggested that this inter-religious dialogue has the
    potential to ease bilateral relations, especially if it receives
    greater publicity. "Pashazade's visit to Yerevan is of course
    important and will hopefully result in more high-level exchanges, or
    even discussion between civil society activists and journalists. But
    few people in Armenia seemed to know about the visit, and even then,
    the wife of a major opposition figure I spoke with who did [know],
    didn't know that the Catholicos had visited Baku and conducted a
    service in the Armenian church in April of last year. Nonetheless,
    the two visits at least serve to underscore that the Karabakh conflict
    is not a religious dispute."

    The Caucasus region is extremely diverse in terms of both religion and
    ethnicity, a true mosaic of cultures. Perceptions of this diversity
    have suffered as a consequence of misleading and reductive commentary
    in the Western media. During the 1990s, Western reporters often framed
    the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as "the conflict between Christian
    Armenians and Muslim Azerbaijanis." As a result, theorists such as
    Samuel Huntington have happily used the Caucasus, and especially
    Nagorno-Karabakh, to demonstrate the concept of "fault lines" between
    "civilizations," where the risk of violent clashes is greater. There
    is a tendency to assume that when there are religious differences,
    these differences must be at the heart of the conflict, but such
    an explanation is often incomplete. In the case of the Karabakh
    conflict, it is misplaced and misleading. While it is the case that the
    Catholicos of all Armenians, Vazgen I, wrote to Soviet leader Mikhail
    Gorbachev in February 1988, asking him to accept the demands of the
    Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians, and even went on Armenian television
    to speak about his request, it is also true that spiritual leaders
    were never at the forefront of the respective movements and their
    behavior was driven more by desire for peace. In 1994, Vazgen I,
    Pashazade and the Russian Orthodox Church jointly encouraged the
    Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders to work together for peace.

    It is interesting, then, that following the signing of a cease-fire
    agreement in 1994, religious discourse has not played a bigger role
    in conflict resolution. During the war, Armenia destroyed many of
    Azerbaijan's unique cultural, historical and religious sites. The
    Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) -- now known as the
    Organization of Islamic Cooperation -- has on several occasions raised
    the importance of the Azerbaijani history, culture, archaeology and
    ethnography that is located in the territories occupied by Armenia,
    naming these sites and artifacts an integral part of Islamic heritage,
    and noting the damage wrought upon the Islamic heritage in the occupied
    territories. Azerbaijan is currently supporting inter-religious and
    inter-cultural dialogue and cooperation between various nations,
    the World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue, for example, as well as
    the restoration of the Udi Church, with the aim of preserving the
    rich cultural heritage of the South Caucasus.

    Given the emotional intensity of this deeply entrenched conflict,
    there will be many who urge caution in heralding these meetings as
    signs of a new, more positive phase in the negotiating process. These
    types of interactions are valuable for Track 2 diplomacy (non-state
    actors), though ultimately they are subordinate to Track 1 (state
    actors). Azerbaijani society in general recognizes the importance of
    Track 2 diplomacy, but there are more than 1 million displaced persons
    from the occupied territories who need to see political developments.

    Rather than seeing greater civil society interaction as a potential
    catalyst for confidence building, given the massive highs and
    lows of expectation and disappointment brought by the Minsk Group
    negotiations, Armenia seems to be taking a hard line, ignoring civil
    society initiatives.

    Officials from the Azerbaijani Community of Nagorno-Karabakh region
    recently tried to meet with Karabakh Armenians, but the meeting was
    never held. At the same time, deaths at the front line have risen. For
    both sides, increased contact at community levels will create a pool
    of experience informing each side's choices in the peace process,
    and can contribute to Track 1 diplomacy. First, Armenia must recognize
    that Nagorno-Karabakh has two communities, Azerbaijanis and Armenians.

    Second, pursuing Track 2 diplomacy could increase confidence building
    measures, and demonstrate that political will can be supported by
    other conflict resolution methods. Finally, the Armenian government
    must understand that the prolongation of the status quo will help
    no one -- on the contrary, it will amplify the mistrust between the
    parties to the conflict.

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