| Ten years ago, with the assistance of Russian diplomacy, the bloodshed in the Transcaucasus - Karabakh and Abkhazia - was stopped. But a peaceful settlement has not been achieved. The situation around Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) is especially difficult. After a long pause, progress was expected in 2004, but it was barely possible to resume meetings between the presidents and foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia. The last such meeting took place between Presidents Ilham Aliyev and Robert Kocharyan in Warsaw a week ago, at an international conference dedicated to the problems of European integration. Nevertheless, for now all the steam is lost to the whistle - into empty polemics.
Armenians do not think of NK as part of Azerbaijan, and Azerbaijanis do not recognize anything else. Yerevan and Stepanakert demand a “package solution” of all controversial issues at once, and Baku demands first to “liberate the occupied lands,” and the status of NK, they say, will be discussed later. The Armenians see this as a catch and strive to maintain a “security zone” around NK until its status is determined. Baku does not allow Stepanakert to join the negotiations, which only delays them. Maximalism, uncompromisingness, inflexibility of the parties - and as a result, an impassable dead end.
Armenians do not understand that none of the leaders of Azerbaijan will sign up for the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh. The Azerbaijanis are constantly threatening to resort to force again, but under these conditions the Armenians will not leave the fortified line of contact and will not leave the occupied territories. Discussions about the principles of international law are fruitless, because everyone elevates their own principle to an absolute - territorial integrity or the right to self-determination. It is more productive to look for pragmatic solutions - concession for concession, changing the guidelines to more realistic ones. The tenth anniversary of the truce is a convenient pretext for holding a meeting not only of ministers, but also of the heads of the two states. Its minimum task is to consolidate the truce and confirm commitment to a political solution to the conflict.
At one time, Yerevan overestimated the ability of the former President of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev, to undertake the renunciation of Nagorno-Karabakh. Today, the Armenians do not want to resume negotiations from scratch, insisting on their continuation on the basis that President Robert Kocharyan discussed with former President Heydar Aliyev in 2001 in Paris and Key West (USA).
Maximum task: historical reconciliation of Armenians and Azerbaijanis. Such a large-scale goal will give the leadership of the parties the right to make counter-concessions. Restraint is also needed in statements. The main psychological inhibitor is deep mutual distrust, so even these seemingly symbolic steps would give a useful impetus.
It is important to restore a stable mechanism for negotiations between authorized delegations of the conflicting parties. Presidents cannot meet often, and full responsibility for concessions cannot be placed on them personally. Foreign ministers also have many responsibilities. It is better to have heads of delegations who would focus entirely on intensive negotiations.
And negotiations need to be resumed not from scratch, but on the basis of the decision of the 1994 OSCE Budapest Summit, adopted with the consent of Presidents Heydar Aliyev and Levon Ter-Petrosyan. After all, this document was adopted not before the height of hostilities, but after the truce. This is the highest document in the OSCE system and the most substantive in terms of the mechanism of negotiations conducted through the mediation of the co-chairs of the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. (This group was formed in 1992, co-chaired by France, Russia and the USA. - Ed. )
Stepanakert's exclusion from the negotiations is a Pyrrhic victory for Baku's diplomacy. NK cannot be just an object of claims. Is NK a party to the conflict? Judge for yourself: Baku ten times agreed to limit military actions only with Stepanakert, without the participation of Yerevan. A ceasefire agreement effective May 12, 1994 was signed by all three parties to the conflict.
A flexible format of negotiations would eliminate obstacles: issues of general importance will be considered by the three parties to the conflict, and specific issues by Azerbaijan with Nagorno-Karabakh or with Armenia (the third party is then only an observer).
It is better to start negotiations with an open agenda, clarify positions - in a word, we need to get off the ground. Then continue them along four parallel paths: 1) reliable consolidation of the ceasefire and military operations; 2) elimination of the causes of the conflict: security and temporary status of NK, elements of the final status; 3) elimination of the consequences of the conflict: liberation of territories, withdrawal of external forces, mine clearance, return of displaced persons and refugees; 4) priority measures to reduce tensions and normalize relations.
Progress along these paths, especially the second and third, will not be fast, so faster pace is needed on the fourth - to defuse the atmosphere of negotiations. Working on four lanes at once will eliminate the hassle of where to start and make bargaining easier. This will allow us to begin moving towards peace, ascent from simple to complex.
The conceptual basis would not be a “package”, as the Armenians demand (territories for determining the status of NK), and not a two-stage approach (“mine first, and yours later”), but the principle of a multi-stage settlement according to the “territories for security” scheme. The Armenians, holding occupied lands for the security of NK, could replace their military-technical means with military-political ones: agree on the demilitarization of all liberated areas before determining the status of NK. Thus, Azerbaijan would receive the liberation of most of its regions. At the same time, the safety of NK would be preserved. It is possible to begin demining and the voluntary return of displaced persons with international control to maintain a gap between the settlements of Armenians and Azerbaijanis.
International guarantees would force the parties to comply with agreements. The now impregnable barrier - the question of the status of NK - would gradually begin to erode. The status would be determined more easily if the situation improved.
The 20th century brought deep divisions to this region: there are no more Azerbaijanis in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, and there are no Armenians in Nakhichevan, Baku, Ganja, Sumgait, Shaumyanovsk. Nakhichevan became purely Azerbaijani, NK became Armenian. Almost a draw, but how much pain it brought to both peoples. The former mutual penetration will not be restored for a long time, but at least mutual understanding between neighbors can be restored. We need a radical revision of approaches; the future is more important than the past. Compromise is higher than victory. It is the duty of leaders to turn this truce into peace. Vladimir KAZIMIROV, Ambassador, in 1992-1996 he headed the mediation mission of Russia, was the plenipotentiary representative of the President
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