InternationalCan Turkey become a deal-maker in the Karabakh conflict?
Published: Friday January 09, 2009
Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh - The resolution of the Karabakh conflict is a key to making substantial progress in ensuring security and cooperation in the South Caucasus. This conflict directly involves one unrecognized and two recognized state entities - or fully half of the region's six state entities. A sustainable peace arrangement would have to take into account the priority interests of all parties to the conflict.
What concerns Karabakh Armenians most of all? The secure existence of the Armenian population of the region in its own homeland.
Background
The problem of Nagorno-Karabakh first emerged in 1918 after the collapse of the Czarist Empire - in connection with territorial delimitation between newly independent Armenia and Azerbaijan. This dispute became an issue of consideration for the League of Nations.
But in 1921, with the Sovietization of Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Bolshevik Party made a unilateral decision establishing the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region inside Soviet Azerbaijan. That decision ignored the will of the majority of Karabakh Armenians, who then made up more than 90 percent of the population.
In Karabakh, the older generation remembers how in the Soviet period, Azerbaijani authorities systematically violated the rights of Karabakh Armenians, pursuing a repressive policy aimed at changing the demographic make-up of Artsakh in favor of ethnic Azerbaijanis.
Armenians suffered murders, disappearances and abuse, arrests, show trials of political prisoners, exile, suppression of dissidents, and deportation of residents of dozens of populated settlements.
The present generation of the Karabakh people faced a real threat of complete annihilation in the course of the large-scale armed aggression launched by Azerbaijan in 1992. Only at the expense of huge human and material losses did the people of Karabakh manage to stop the war, which directly affected practically each Karabakh family, resulting in thousands of deaths.
In Soviet times, mindful of the Kremlin, Azerbaijan behaved relatively cautiously. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Azerbaijani political leadership embraced more openly violent measures and direct armed aggression against Karabakh.
Priorities today
Since its first appearance on the political map in 1918, Azerbaijan, under all its regimes, has aimed to expel or physically annihilate the Armenians of Artsakh. That is why ensuring the external security of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and its people remains an urgent task.
On the other hand, NKR does not threaten Azerbaijan's secure existence and development. On the contrary, since Karabakh's secession from Azerbaijan and signing the cease-fire agreement, Azerbaijan's macro-economic indicators - driven by Caspian energy - are showing rapid growth.
For Azerbaijan claims on the Karabakh territories are in category of political ambition rather than an existential matter, as they are for Karabakh Armenians.
De facto borders established as a result of the 1994 cease-fire are one of the key elements providing for stability, and by extension security and development of all the regional countries. For NKR especially, they ensure its military, food, energy, and ecological security.
Karabakh's long-term security can be provided only through recognition of the independent statehood of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. Attaining international recognition is not a goal in itself; rather it is a mechanism for ensuring Karabakh's security.
At the same time, recognition of NKR by global and regional powers could help prod Azerbaijan to overcome the existing psychological barriers and begin to shed its hostile policies.
Western recognition of Kosovo helped Serbia moved toward integration with the European Union. A similar scenario with international recognition of Karabakh would help the Caucasus region's long-term stability and contribute to energy security of Europe.
Turkey's role in Karabakh: history
The tempo of official contacts between Armenia and Turkey has intensified in the last several months. Ankara has also expressed interest in stepping up its role in the Karabakh peace process.
What role has Turkey played in the Karabakh conflict so far and how can this role evolve?
Throughout the conflict between Karabakh and Azerbaijan, Turkey always supported Azerbaijan. Turkish forces played the leading military role in the first stage of the conflict in 1918-20.
And in the last two decades, we have witnessed the strategic Azerbaijani-Turkish partnership, including Turkish military aid to Azerbaijan in the process of its armed aggression against NKR, and continuing participation of Turkey in the hostile land blockade of Armenia and NKR.
At the same time, since 1992 Turkey has been a member of the OSCE Minsk Group, which is mediating the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Thus, in our conflict with Azerbaijan, Turkey has attempted to play a dual role of indirect participant and mediator.
According to regional experts, including representatives of the Turkish expert community, there is a perception in Ankara that the policy toward Armenia and NKR to date has not been effective.
Additionally, the new configuration of forces in the South Caucasus after the recent war in Georgia stimulated Turkey to consider correcting its approach.
A series of visits by Turkish leaders to the countries of the region and Moscow and the initiative to create a "security platform" in the Caucasus show evolution in Ankara's regional role.
Turkey's potential role
Will Turkey be able to find a new place in the region and play a positive role in the settlement of the Karabakh conflict?
