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  • Why America Must Step Up Its Role In Resolving Armenian-Azerbaijani

    WHY AMERICA MUST STEP UP ITS ROLE IN RESOLVING ARMENIAN-AZERBAIJANI CONFLICT

    Yahoo News
    June 10 2014

    Stepping up America's direct role in advancing a resolution to the
    simmering conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region between Armenia and
    Azerbaijan is an essential step to serve not only American interests,
    but to put Vladimir Putin on the defensive.

    By Svante E. Cornell 7 hours ago

    This May marked the 20th anniversary of the cease-fire in the conflict
    between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorna-Karabakh region. That
    is hardly an occasion to celebrate: This conflict remains unresolved,
    and in the aftermath of the Crimea conflict, is arguably both more
    dangerous and more relevant than ever to US interests.

    If Crimea is the latest "frozen" conflict in Eurasia, the one over
    Nagorno-Karabakh was the mother of the territorial conflicts of the
    former Soviet Union. The conflict over that mountainous territory
    pitted two post-Soviet republics in the strategic South Caucasus
    against one another, and has remained unresolved since the cease-fire
    20 years ago. It also set the tone for a series of territorial
    conflicts with geopolitical overtones in South Ossetia, Abkhazia,
    and Transnistria - and eventually in Crimea.

    Just like Crimea, Karabakh featured a territory with a disputed
    history, a contentious status, and a majority population with
    affiliations to a neighboring state. But like Crimea, Karabakh was
    never just about the locals. The conflict always featured a third
    player: Moscow, which from day one played a key role in determining the
    outcome of the conflict. It helped instigate the violence and armed
    both sides, calibrating releases of weapons to achieve a stalemate
    that left both countries weak and exposed to Russian pressure. To this
    day, it remains Russia's policy to maintain a controlled instability
    between the two countries, using the conflict to cement its control
    over Armenia, and to weaken pro-Western Azerbaijan.

    In a tragic irony, the war turned a winner into a loser. Much smaller
    than Azerbaijan in terms of wealth, population and territory, Armenia
    was able to use Russian help to take control not only of the disputed
    territory itself, but of seven adjacent areas of Azerbaijan. Armenia
    had enjoyed considerable sympathies in the West, but its policies
    of ethnic cleansing turned it into an aggressor in the eyes of the
    world community. It also led to Armenia's international isolation.

    On the other hand, Azerbaijan began developing its large oil and gas
    resources, and its GDP is now five time larger than Armenia's. Armenia
    has found itself with a shrinking population and a total dependence on
    Russia to maintain its territorial gains. Yet Azerbaijan is no winner
    either; as long as the conflict remains, its sovereignty is abridged,
    and its population increasingly restless.

    Calling this a "frozen" conflict provides a false sense of security.

    After all, the term conjures the sense that there is no cost of
    inaction. But with every passing year, the risk of a new war grows,
    triggered either by accident or by design. In truth, the conflict is
    now on track to be another Kashmir or Israel-Palestinian conflict:
    featuring periods of cold peace interrupted by hot war. From my
    perspective, the real question is what the timing, magnitude, and
    shape of the next active part of the conflict will be.

    That next war will not occur in a remote backwater. The conflict
    lies at the crossroads of Eurasia, bordered by major powers. It lies
    astride the main route pumping Caspian energy to Europe. And the
    region provides the only logistical access point connecting NATO
    to Central Asia and Afghanistan. In spite of this, international
    efforts to end the conflict have been dismal. The Organization for
    Security and Co-operation in Europe created a "Minsk Group" in 1992
    to negotiate a settlement on the disputed region's status. That group
    includes the United States and France as co-chairs, but also Russia,
    the very power that is seeking to keep the flames alive.

    The notion was that having Russia "in the tent" was better than having
    it sabotaging from the outside. This pragmatism was understandable
    - but requires an entirely different approach than what Washington
    has mustered to be credible. In the last few years, America did not
    object when Moscow, fresh from invading Georgia, decided in 2009 that
    it wanted to take a lead in resolving the conflict. No one asked what
    credibility Moscow had to play the peacemaker in the South Caucasus.

    When that effort to strike a Russian-sponsored deal fell through,
    many even pointed the blame at Armenia and Azerbaijan, rather than
    to Moscow, where it belonged.

    Instead of putting effort into resolving the standoff, Washington
    pursued a futile Turkish-Armenian rapprochement, ignoring the damage
    that shoving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to the back burner would do
    to a vulnerable and reliable American ally, Azerbaijan. The US even
    allowed its co-chairmanship of the peace process to remain vacant
    for almost a year.

    A skilled US diplomat, James Warlick, is now in charge of the job. But
    even after Crimea, the Obama administration keeps toeing the line that
    its cooperation with Russia on the Karabakh conflict is exemplary. But
    the only way US-Russian cooperation on Karabakh could be harmonious
    would be if the US were doing nothing to advance a settlement -
    since doing something would trigger a Russian reaction. More likely,
    administration officials are not ready to commit to a serious effort
    to raise America's profile on this issue.

    If the US is serious about confronting Vladimir Putin, this inaction
    will not do. Understandably, the administration has focused so
    far on Ukraine and on sanctions on Russia. But going forward,
    stepping up America's direct role in advancing a resolution to the
    Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict is an essential step to serve not only
    American interests, but to put Putin on the defensive. This will
    not be easy, but failing to meet the challenge projects an image of
    American weakness that plays straight into Putin's hands.

    Svante E. Cornell is director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute
    at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

    http://news.yahoo.com/why-america-must-step-role-resolving-armenian-azerbaijani-131113442--politics.html




    From: A. Papazian
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