In Karabakh talks, promise of a referendum in return for land

Secret details of the negotiations emerge

by Tatul Hakobyan

Published: Friday August 21, 2009

Matthew Bryza, the U.S. co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, during a July 27 visit to Yerevan. Photolure

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Tsaghkadzor, Kotayk Province, Armenia - At a meeting with young Armenians in the resort town of Tsaghgatsor, the American co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, Matthew Bryza, said the Madrid Document for the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict sought to reconcile the three main principle of the OSCE Helsinki Final Act – the principles of the self-determination of peoples, the territorial integrity of states, and the nonuse of force.

"Those three principles may sound contradictory, at least the first two, but they are not. It is difficult to reconcile them; that is why we have been negotiating so long, that is why the talks have been so complicated. But I think we have found a formula in the Basic Principles as reflected in the Madrid Document of November 2007 – and now reflected in the updated version of that document that the co-chairs pulled together in Krakow at the end of July – that does strike that balance," Mr. Bryza said at the meeting, which had been organized by the Yerevan-based International Center for Human Development.

Mr. Bryza, who is deputy assistant secretary of state, went into greater detail than ever before about the document on the negotiating table.

"A legalization of the status quo"

"The basic idea of the agreement is that Nagorno-Karabakh will receive an interim status, which will be a legalization of the status quo. The interim status will make clear and ensure that that status quo will continue for an interim period until the second key element – until there is a vote by the residents of Nagorno-Karabakh to determine the final legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh. So there is a way that self-determination is expressed in terms of this interim status and the final status that will be determined by the vote," Mr. Bryza said.

The principle of territorial integrity, as the American diplomat put it, will be reflected with the return of the "seven territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh" to Azerbaijan.

"Those territories will be returned in a staged way, as President Aliyev described in July in an interview with Russian television; five or six territories being returned immediately and one or two or part of one and another territory returned with some delay, maybe in five years, maybe in another number of years. So we will also take care of the principle of territorial integrity by the return of these territories to Azerbaijan with the final legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh to be determined at some point," he said.

In addition, "knowing that the most important factor for the residents of Nagorno-Karabakh is their security," there will be a special security regime with guarantees that ensure that there won't be any threatening military forces surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh; there will be international peacekeepers.

Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed

Finally, another key element, according to Mr. Bryza, is the corridor that connects Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia and the opening of all transit routes between Azerbaijan and Armenia, including Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhichevan.

"I truly do believe that the two presidents right now are on the verge of a breakthrough that will clear the way, could be in months, to finalize the Basic Principles. I can't predict exactly when they will come up with that agreement to finalize the Basic Principles because they still wonder about each other; they wonder, Does my counterpart really want a settlement or is he trying to manipulate me? Is he trying to get more concessions from me so that the agreement looks as good as possible to his population or is he simply trying to get a little more advantage over me?" Mr. Bryza said.

The U.S. diplomat, who according to persistent rumors, is a contender for the position of U.S. ambassador to Baku, said, "The Karabakh and Armenian-Turkish negotiations are separate processes; they are moving forward at different speeds, but they help each other as one process moves forward."

Referring to Presidents Serge Sargsian and Ilham Aliyev, he added, "There is no agreement yet but they are very close. Nothing is agreed upon until all the elements are agreed upon at once."

Reading the documents

The Madrid Document was presented to the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2007. An updated proposal was placed on the table in July 2009, and the main elements were publicized.

How does the updated version, which is sometimes referred to as the Krakow Proposal, differ from the Madrid Document?

The Armenian Reporter was able to review the still-secret Madrid Document in its various manifestations. This review and interviews with former and current officials intimately familiar with the negotiations show that the Krakow Proposal does not differ profoundly from either the original Madrid Document or from the working paper presented to the sides in 2005.

Points of contention

At the core of all these documents are four basic principles: that the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict must be based on the principle of self-determination through a referendum, a plebiscite, a popular vote, or a legally binding expression of will; that certain territories must be returned; that internally displaced persons must have the chance to return; and that there must be security guarantees.

The principles are certainly important, but as they say, the devil is in the details. In order to decide the acceptability or unacceptability of any document, one has to review not the positive points of the document, but its negative aspects. Simply put, if all the points in the document are acceptable except for one, then the whole document can be considered unacceptable.

The Madrid Document, presented in November 2007, is composed of 14 basic principles, and incorporates the four founding principles.