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Mediating Powers Make New Push For Karabakh Peace

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  • Mediating Powers Make New Push For Karabakh Peace

    MEDIATING POWERS MAKE NEW PUSH FOR KARABAKH PEACE
    Emil Danielyan

    The Jamestown Foundation
    December 11, 2009

    U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, French Foreign
    Minister Bernard Kouchner, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov,
    Edward Nalbandian of Armenia, and Elmar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan at
    the meeting of the OSCE Ministerial Council in Athens, Dec. 1, 2009.

    (OSCE) The United States, Russia and France have again stepped up their
    efforts to broker a solution to the Karabakh conflict. Top diplomats
    from the three mediating powers urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to hammer
    out a framework peace accord "as soon as possible" after intensive
    Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks held on the sidelines of the OSCE's
    December 1-2 ministerial meeting in Athens. French Foreign Minister
    Bernard Kouchner was reportedly confident that a deal could be reached
    in the coming months. His optimism was called into question, however,
    by the conflicting parties' continuing different public interpretations
    of peace proposals made by the American, French and Russian co-chairs
    of the OSCE's so-called Minsk Group on Karabakh.

    The Athens talks came just over a week after Armenian President
    Serzh Sargsyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev held
    their sixth face-to-face meeting this year in Munich. In a statement
    posted on the OSCE website on November 23, the Minsk Group co-chairs
    described the meeting as "constructive." "In some areas, progress
    was made. At the same time, some issues still remain open," they said
    without elaboration.

    Addressing a convention of his Republican Party of Armenia on November
    28, Sargsyan cautioned that the negotiating process "may take years."

    But he also stressed: "The current stage of the conflict's resolution
    gives me reason to hope that we could bring it to a logical conclusion
    within a reasonable period of time" (Armenian Public Television,
    November 28).

    Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian and his Azerbaijani
    counterpart, Elmar Mammadyarov, followed up on the Munich summit
    by holding bilateral talks and separate meetings with the three
    co-chairs in Athens on November 30 and December 1. The two-day
    flurry of diplomatic activity culminated in their joint session
    with Kouchner, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Deputy
    Secretary of State James Steinberg. An ensuing five-party statement
    (www.osce.org/item/41737.html) said that Nalbandian and Mammadyarov
    reaffirmed their countries' "commitment to work intensively to resolve
    the remaining issues" preventing their acceptance of the "basic
    principles" of a Karabakh settlement that were formally put forward by
    the mediators in Madrid in November 2007. It said the mediating powers
    had urged Baku and Yerevan to "complete this work as soon as possible."

    The foreign ministers of the 51 other OSCE member states strongly
    backed the call at the end of the two-day meeting in the Greek
    capital. "We urge the parties to sustain the positive dynamic of
    the negotiations and strongly support their commitment to finalize
    the basic principles on the peaceful settlement of the Karabakh
    conflict, based on the Madrid document in order to begin drafting
    a comprehensive peace agreement in good faith and without delay,"
    read a joint ministerial statement adopted at the conference
    (www.osce.org/documents/html/pdftohtml/ 41849_en.pdf.html).

    Kouchner was particularly optimistic that Baku and Yerevan will soon
    overcome what the mediators have repeatedly described as their "few
    remaining differences" related to the Madrid document. "I am confident
    it will be done. Immediately? No. In the coming months? Yes," he told
    journalists (Trend, December 1). "Now is the time to make decisions,"
    the French minister appealed to the two parties in a speech at the
    OSCE conference earlier in the day.

    The so-called Madrid principles, disclosed by the mediators in general
    terms, call for a phased settlement of the Karabakh conflict that would
    start with a gradual liberation of the seven districts in Azerbaijan,
    which were fully or partly occupied by Karabakh Armenian forces
    during the 1991-1994 war. In return, Karabakh's predominantly Armenian
    population would be able to determine the disputed enclave's status
    in a legally binding referendum. Armenian-Azerbaijani disagreements
    have until now centered on crucial practical modalities of the proposed
    referendum, the timetable for Armenian troop withdrawal as well as the
    legal status of a future land corridor between Karabakh and Armenia.

    The parties have raised more questions about their ability
    to iron out those differences by offering, at least in public,
    conflicting interpretations of both the proposed settlement and the
    Karabakh-related documents adopted during the OSCE gathering. The
    five-party statement, for example, made clear that a peace deal should
    be based on a combination of the internationally recognized principles
    of non-use of force or threat of force, territorial integrity of
    states and self-determination of peoples. Nalbandian touted this as
    a major achievement for the Armenian side, saying that Azerbaijan
    for the first time formally accepted the Karabakh Armenians' right
    to self-determination (Aravot, December 2).

    However, Mammadyarov insisted on the restoration of Azerbaijani
    control over the territory in his speech at the OSCE forum. "Providing
    self-governance for Karabakh within Azerbaijan will be a just and
    durable solution," he said (www.armenialiberty.org, December 2).

    Aliyev's chief foreign policy aide, Novruz Mammadov, likewise said
    that Baku can only settle for a "broad autonomy" for Karabakh. "It is
    openly indicated in the Madrid principles that the Armenian community
    of Karabakh can decide its fate, together with the Azerbaijanis living
    there, within the framework of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity,"
    he claimed (www.zerkalo.az, December 5).

    Armenian leaders maintain that the Karabakh Armenians would be able
    to vote for independence, reunification with Armenia or return under
    Azerbaijani rule in the would-be referendum, a claim that is privately
    confirmed by some Western diplomats privy to the peace process. Just
    how the warring sides can reconcile these opposite visions of
    Karabakh peace is still unclear. Despite the lingering uncertainty
    and confusion, Mammadov seemed to suggest that Kouchner's optimism
    on the peace prospects is not unfounded. "I think that when making
    such a statement [Kouchner] comprehensively analyzed all processes
    and substantiated his position," the Azerbaijani official said.
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