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(2) CAUCASUS During the first week of April, President Robert Kocharian of Armenia and President Heydar Aliyev of Azerbaijan arrived at the basic formula while attending four days of OSCE-mediated talks in Key West which were hosted by US Secretary of State Colin Powell. Then the presidents had individual meetings in Washington, DC, with US President George W. Bush. The parties and the OSCE are keeping the substance of the talks secret, but some details have been leaked in a scattered way among different media outlets and others can be inferred from the official statements. The Armenian side would return six of the occupied seven districts of Azerbaijan outside Nagorno-Karabakh. This would allow the vast majority of the more than 700,000 Azerbaijani refugees to return home. According to Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Vilayat Guliev, a territorial exchange is not on the agenda, but the retention by Armenia of the "Lachin corridor" linking Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh must be balanced by a corridor through Armenia from Azerbaijan proper to its non-contiguous territory, Nakhichevan. In this context, having dismissed the territorial swap, it would seem that by "corridor" the parties mean extra-territorial roads. (However, in the Lachin region some change of borders in Armenia's favor seems to be implied.) As regards status, Cavanaugh says the "common state" formula has been discarded and Guliev says that Nagorno-Karabakh will have a "high degree of autonomy" but formally remain within Azerbaijan. (REUTERS, 19 Apr 01; and THE ECONOMIST, 21 Apr 01) The US State Department has announced that the OSCE in the person of Carey Cavanaugh is informing Iran about the talks and that a group of experts on borders has been summoned. This also suggests that extra-territorial roads are under discussion, since a road from Azerbaijan proper to Nakchichevan would have to pass very close to the Iranian frontier, perhaps even running along the border where there is a railroad already. If the agreement is signed, restrictions on US assistance to Azerbaijan and the trade embargo that Azerbaijan and Turkey have imposed on Armenia would be lifted. This would pave the way to normalizing relations between Turkey and Armenia. How to sell the compromise? Persuading the populace in both states that this compromise represents the best available outcome requires a degree of openness and public accountability that has been woefully lacking. However, the last couple of months witnessed some very productive experiments with public discussion. The February publication of the outdated draft OSCE texts created a context for debate in Azerbaijan that humiliated the opposition, which had no viable alternative to offer. (See THE NIS OBSERVED, 28 Feb 01 and 21 Mar 01) The presidents must trust their publics to be savvy enough to distinguish between an opposition that criticizes real flaws in the peace proposals and an opposition that only uses the occasion to attack the plan's authors. At the same time, the presidents have a very powerful tool - deniability. The governments already have leaked more information than was made available in 1997 and 1999, the two previous occasions when a compromise seemed imminent. Over the next few weeks, the opposition can have its say and, if its representatives propose improvements, the governments can modify the proposals before making them public. (Ways of ensuring the security of the roads without introducing foreign peacekeepers represents one fruitful area for discussion.) In other words, the break before the Geneva meeting provides the presidents with an opportunity to steal the thunder from the opposition by appropriating any constructive proposals that may emerge. In 1994, when the cease-fire agreement was signed, both nations were exhausted by war. Now they are exhausted by poverty. The international community can play a very constructive role by holding out generous financial incentives. The Azeri refugees who eked out an existence amid devastating squalor need more than the formal right of return; they need services, transportation, and shelter. Veterans in both countries lack medical care, pensions, and employment. It's not enough to suggest that peace will remove obstacles to trade and promote economic recovery. It would be far more persuasive to offer an aid package to improve immediately the condition of those who suffered the most from the war. Why isn't Russia misbehaving? In March two former Azerbaijani officials,
Tofig Zulfugarov and Eldar Namazov, proposed launching limited
operations to retake the Armenian-occupied districts east of
Nagorno-Karabakh. (ZERKALO, 7 Mar 01) It's ironic that for the second time in a decade the South Caucasus is poised to reap the benefits of a Chechen war. Nearly two years ago Azerbaijan's elder statesman, Vafa Guluzade, resigned his position as foreign policy advisor to Aliyev in protest over Azerbaijan's lack of support for the Chechens. His words ring prophetic now: "I will tell you right now that if that brave and courageous people in their tiny republic (of Chechnya) had not managed to defeat Russia in the 1994-1996 war, Moscow would long have been back in Azerbaijan, making further trouble and trying to destroy our independence. Our debt to the Chechens is huge - and yet not one voice in this government will speak one word of support or solidarity. Silence. I am ashamed, mortified. That is why I quit." (Thomas Goltz, "The Question of Succession in Azerbaijan: Is the Aliyev era (almost) Over?" SDI CASPIAN STUDIES EXPERTS CONFERENCE REPORT, Oct 99) Evolution of US policy The Bush administration improved the process substantially by merging the bilateral talks with the OSCE mediation. In Key West the main talks were among the negotiators and between the negotiators and each of the parties separately. The presidents met only once and for only a brief period. This format shares the spotlight among the mediators, expedites the process by having the presidents on hand to react swiftly, and gives symbolic weight to the proceedings by involving top figures from the US administration. The Bush administration has come under
criticism for taking a tougher line in its relations with Russia
than the previous administration. Yet, in this instance, the
Bush administration involved the Russian representatives in a
cooperative and fruitful manner. This administration is said
to be weak on foreign policy and uninterested in international
conflicts. Yet, according to Cavanaugh, on the 10th day of the
administration President Bush discussed the Nagorno-Karabakh
quandary with President Chirac; in its 10th week the administration
was hosting the negotiations in Key West. Azerbaijani embassy
sources say that the US president himself ran the half-hour meeting
with Aliyev. Bush exhibited such mastery of the complexities
of the situation that the Azerbaijani president was very satisfied
when he left the room. |
