Taking steps toward a lasting peace in Karabakh

Published: Friday July 24, 2009

Related Articles

Nagorno-Karabakh must no longer be barred from the negotiating table

Sides have not accepted the mediators’ proposal for Karabakh, Armenia’s foreign minister says

President Serge Sargsian urged not to endorse “updated Madrid Document”

Mediators fault Azerbaijan for threatening war over Karabakh

Mediators play down prospects of early Karabakh settlement

Armenia's foreign minister this week quite rightly noted that the proposals of the mediators in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict are just that: proposals. Neither Armenia, nor Azerbaijan, nor Nagorno-Karabakh itself has agreed to the proposed Basic Principles as a whole.

In an earlier stage of the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process, the mediators would prepare long documents and present them to Yerevan, Stepanakert, and Baku for their consideration. The parties would examine the suggestions for several days or even weeks, and then present their stance to the co-chairs. One proposal (say the July 1997 package deal) would be rejected by Stepanakert, another (say the Paris-Key West proposal of spring 2001) would be rejected by Baku.

With the rejection of successive draft agreements by one side or another, the mediators - the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs - adopted a new approach. They held series of separate and joint talks with the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan, known as the Prague process. Then, in August 2005, they presented the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan with a one-page statement of principles around which they sought to secure the agreement of the sides. Only after the framework was agreed to would negotiations over a settlement agreement begin.

Thus, in the current process, first a framework is to be agreed to; then a comprehensive agreement is to be drawn up, negotiated, and agreed to; and then implementation may begin.

If in the past the mediators prepared the proposals for the consideration of the parties, now the majority of the work is done by the foreign ministers. This method was meant to give the sides a greater stake in the resulting documents and make it more difficult for the parties to reject the outcome out of hand.

The one-page document has become a progressively longer one, and it has been modified time and again. Clearly, it is not a document the sides agree to in its entirety. Nor, on the other hand, do Armenia and Azerbaijan reject it in its entirety.

Of course, the proposal on the table is an important measure of the state of the negotiations. If a new iteration by the co-chairs is less favorable to one side than the previous iteration had been, then that side has more work to do to reach an acceptable settlement - or else, it has to accept a more bitter compromise.

It is reassuring to hear the foreign minister assert that the current iteration is not one that Armenia is ready to adopt in its entirety; there is still work to be done to reach a compromise the sides can live with.

Now it is crucial to get Nagorno-Karabakh itself more directly involved in the talks. The U.S. co-chair, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matt Bryza has said repeatedly that no agreement can be reached without Karabakh's consent. He reiterated that simple fact this week. He is right, and the way to move forward is with Karabakh's full participation.

As long as Azerbaijan does not accept Karabakh as an interlocutor in the talks, it will be hard to believe that the Azerbaijani side is negotiating in good faith. There can be no negotiated settlement that does not recognize Karabakh as a legitimate entity; so if Azerbaijan is serious about a negotiated settlement, it needs to start engaging the entity that is and will remain its neighbor. Until it shows it can engage Karabakh directly and constructively, all talk about peace and security will be far from persuasive for the people of Karabakh - or for the people of Armenia for that matter.