“The way to the sovereignty of unrecognized states runs via NATO”: Nagorno Karabakh press digest

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Moscow

The head of the department on inter-ethnic relations of the Moscow Institute of Political and Military Analysis Sergey Markedonov does not see any special prerequisites for “a breakthrough in the Karabakh problem this year.” He does not quite agree with the stance of the new OSCE Chairman-in-Office Karel De Gucht that 2006 will bring a turning in the Karabakh peace process. Markedonov does not share De Gucht's optimism — for “democracy and peacemaking are parallels that do no much intersect.”

“In one word, democracy has nothing to do with the territorial integrity of one or another country,” he says, noting that Russian politicians have echoed De Gucht by saying that the progress in the Karabakh problem will be achieved exactly this year. Their reasoning is mostly that Armenian and Azeri Presidents Robert Kocharyan and Ilham Aliyev are meeting in a few days for the next stage of the peace talks. “We remember many such meetings. But we have seen no serious progress in the matter. Alas, the sides have failed to meet half-way to date,” says Markedonov. He notes that De Gucht's words have one end in view: “Simply this statesman wants to go down in history as a peace-maker. But believe me, we will not in our living days see anybody getting a Nobel Prize for making peace in Karabakh.” (Zerkalo — PanARMENIAN.Net)

Baku

The visit of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs to the Karabakh conflict region started from Azerbaijan. Arriving in Baku were the co-chairs Yuri Merzlyakov (Russia), Steven Mann (US) and Bernard Fassier (France) as well as Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk. 525th Daily (Baku) reports the co-chairs to meet, first, Azeri Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov and, then, President Ilham Aliyev, with nothing said to journalists about the meetings. Just on the eve of the visit Mann said that “with dedication, some flexibility and political will, 2006 can be the year for a Karabakh agreement.” He said: “All of us recognize that we are at the stage where we have to turn the corner from negotiation to decision. And speaking from the American perspective, we believe that the possibility for a deal exists in the months ahead. So, I think the meetings that are coming up in the next two weeks are a very important opportunity. And again, speaking from the American side, we do not want the sides to fail to take advantage of this important opportunity.”

In an interview to Radio Liberty Steven Mann said: “Next week, at the invitation of President Chirac, the presidents will be coming to France and there will participate in discussions under the umbrella of the OSCE co-chairs. We have been working in the context of the Prague process for almost two years now, where we have had serious and detailed discussions and negotiations between the two sides. And the presidents themselves have met a number of times for talks on Karabakh. All of us recognize that we are at the stage where we have to turn the corner from negotiation to decision.” Not saying exactly what the sides will be discussing in Paris, Mann said: “There are extremely substantial benefits that we could look forward to for each side in this. Any agreement has to have a win-win outcome. There has to be something in it for each side. And I believe that the discussions have been moving in that direction.” “Now, the issues are very difficult issues. If the subject were less difficult, it would have been solved years ago. Even with the best of will on each side — and we do have good will, on the part of each foreign minister and each president — but even with the best of will, there are very, very difficult issues. So, I do not minimize the task.”

Zerkalo daily (Baku) says that Baku was unfriendly to the co-chairs. If Bernard Fassier and Yuri Merzlyakov left the airport with no problems, Steven Mann had to sustain “a Hollywood smile” for several minutes while activists of the Azeri Organization for Karabakh Liberation (OKL) were yelling around: “Accomplices of the Armenians!” The same organization tried to picket the building of the Foreign Ministry, where the co-chairs were negotiating with Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov. 25 OKL activists came near and cried out: “Co-chairs, get away and never come back here again!” The police shoved them back and arrested 4 people. The daily reports the OKL leader Akif Nagi to say earlier that the OKL would launch a series of actions to protest against the co-chairs and the present course of the peace talks. Nagi said that the negotiating process is developing against Azerbaijan's interests. “We see obvious attempts being made to give Nagorno Karabakh and Lachin to Armenia as a concession,” Nagi said.

The Azeri Adalyat party says that the OSCE mediation in the Karabakh peace process must be cast away. Referring to Baku 525th Daily, ARMINFO news agency reports the party to say Jan 26 that the Azeri authorities must reject further meditation by the OSCE Minsk Group in the Karabakh peace process and insist on compliance with the resolutions of UN Security Council, who has authority to enforce them. Azerbaijan must set a specific deadline for the international community to restore its territorial integrity and must declare a military resolution unless the deadline is met. Adalyat welcomes the army building activities in Azerbaijan and believes that it must be of a more complex scale. The party proposes holding parliamentary discussions on the events in Nagorno Karabakh and giving them a political assessment.

Yerevan

Feb 2, upon finishing their talks in Baku, the OSCE MG co-chairs Yuri Merzlyakov (Russia), Steven Mann (US) and Bernard Fassier (France) flew to Yerevan to pave the way for the presidential talks in Paris Feb 10. Right after arriving in Yerevan, they met with Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan to discuss mainly the present stage and the prospects of the peace talks and the details of the forthcoming meeting in Paris. Present at the meeting was the special representative of the OSCE chairman-in-office Andrzej Kasprzyk. The same issues were discussed with Armenian President Robert Kocharyan. (A1+)

The Armenian side is “going” to the Paris meeting with optimism, the spokesman of the Armenian FM Hamlet Gasparyan said in response to the question what Yerevan is expecting from the coming meeting of the Armenian and Azeri presidents. New Time daily reports him as saying: “A good deal of work has certainly been done under the Prague process to bring the sides closer in their positions and to make them agree on the issues of principle. Let's hope that in Paris the presidents will take one more step forward,” Gasparyan said. Asked about the visit of the OSCE MG co-chairs, Gasparyan said that the co-chairs came to see the moods of the Armenian and Azeri presidents and to specify some issues from the agenda.

Hayastani Hanrapetoutyun daily says that, asked by ArmenPress if Armenia shares Steven Mann's optimism that “2006 can be the year for a Karabakh agreement,” Gasparyan said: “The Armenian side is resolved and willing to find a solution, but Azerbaijan's rigidity and incompliance make us very careful.”

Commenting on Steven Mann's optimism, Azg daily says that “can” does not mean “will”: “2006 can be also the year of an end to the ‘European patience.’”

Before the meeting of the Armenian and Azeri presidents

525th Daily reports OSCE Minsk Group Russian co-chair Yuri Merzlyakov as saying to Trend news agency that in Paris the Azeri and Armenian presidents will consider some working document. “But not for signing. For work.”

The Armenian and Azeri presidents are meeting in Paris in 10 days. No doubt this time too they will come to nothing. But the very fact that they are meeting as well as some scraps from what the mediators are saying allow some figures in Armenia and Azerbaijan to pose as heroes, to make “uncompromising” statements and to get dividends from their improvisations on the popular theme “no inch of land to the enemy.” In this respect, the editor of Aravot daily Aram Abrahamyan says: “First, no peace is possible unless troops are withdrawn from the five districts around Karabakh: this condition can be seen in whatever proposals by the mediators — ‘victorious,’ ‘capitulatory,’ ‘staged,’ ‘package,’ ‘mixed,’ ‘intermediary’ and so on. Second, the pressure of the international community on Armenia and Azerbaijan is not strong enough to press their leaders into mutual concessions.”

If they (or one of them) refuse to solve the problem, it will not be solved. As of now one thing is clear: it is much easier to pose as a hero than to try to find a way towards peace — a thing that certainly takes courage and maturity. That's probably why the authorities in Armenia (and also in Azerbaijan) are not taking decisive steps to establish peace. Abrahamyan notes that saying “no inch of land” are usually those who have never seen bloodshed.

Many experts say that during their forthcoming meeting in Paris Kocharyan and Aliyev will sign some “basic settlement principles,” a document pressured by the West, says 168 Hours daily. The leader of the parliamentary faction of the Republican Party of Armenia Galoust Sahakyan is not sure at all that there is a document for the presidents to sign. “What they will really discuss is the deployment of peacekeepers, while the rest is just rumors and political speculations in both Armenia and Azerbaijan.” The president of the Union of Political Scientists of Armenia, MP Hamayak Hovhannisyan says that one should not go into political forecasts right before the meeting. Knowing well what the side really can and think, Hovhannissyan sees no ground for believing or even hoping that the problem will “take the course of specific decisions.”

“Even though the MG co-chairs have said that 2006 will be a turning point, for now the sides are significantly at variance. Should Azerbaijan take for a basis that decisive for Armenia's position is the position of Karabakh (which is not yet a way to resolution), one can hope that the sides might get closer to each other for the moment. But even this will bring to no final solution.” The secretary of the parliamentary faction of the Justice Opposition Bloc Viktor Dallakyan does not expect a final agreement from the coming presidential meeting.

“The world community believes that 2006 can be decisive for the Karabakh peace process. Besides, Oskanyan has confirmed that he and Mamedyarov have drafted a one-page document on the key principles. That is, there is a draft. If there already is a draft, it just remains to detail it, and this allows me to presume that the problem can be finalized in 2006. Besides, there are people who say this and serious people at that. And so, it is possible that a document on general principles will be signed in 2006.”

The MP from the same bloc Aram Sargsyan says that if Kocharyan wants to resign, he can freely sign any document — “for he will not stay a single day in Armenia if he signs it.” Asked if Russia or the West may impose any specific scenario during the meeting, Sargsyan says: “This can be done only by the West — as Russia is eager that no NATO troops be deployed in the region and both Russia and Iran will actively use their interests here. Hence, the only source of possible coercion is the US or other western country.” Sargsyan is almost sure that no final decision will be made during the Feb 10 meeting, but he is also sure that Kocharyan will not be able to drag this process for any longer than a few months. “He has time till May, no more.”

525th Daily (Baku) reports OSCE Spokesman in Vienna Keith Jinks as believing that there is a modest opportunity to achieve a breakthrough at the forthcoming Feb 10 meeting of the Armenian and Azeri presidents in Paris. The meeting is a preliminary stage for the sides to reach a final agreement on the issues of principle. After Paris the presidents will meet some few times more. “The existing window of possibilities requires hard work before the next stage of talks so that we could concentrate our attention on concrete unresolved problems,” Jinks said.

He said that presently the talks are focused on “the territorial issue.” There are problems and obstacles which require stage-by-stage resolution. The same is for the territorial issue, the issue of peacekeeping and other issues. The daily quotes the OSCE chairman-in-office as saying almost the same after his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Commenting on the results of his talks in Armenia and Azerbaijan, De Gucht said that both sides seek an early solution but they are still “at variance over the territorial issue.”

It is significant that almost at the same time with De Gucht visiting the region was Russian Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov, who, in both Yerevan and Baku, spoke about the Karabakh problem and about the possible deployment of Russian peacekeepers in the region. 525th Daily says that the coincided visits of De Gucht and Ivanov are not “just a coincidence” and that visiting Baku shortly before was also US Deputy Commander in Europe Charles Wald. And so, the daily infers that there might be a fierce rivalry going on at present for who will sponsor peace in the Armenian-Azeri conflict, this including who will deploy peacekeeping forces in the region. The fact that while briefing in Baku the Russian defense minister called the OSCE “a not serious organization” means that “the only rivals for Russia in peace making and keeping in the region are the US and NATO.”