Samvel Martirosyan: 7/21/04
Armenian President Robert Kocharian’s administration appears to be facing increasing pressure to soften its stance on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. Reports suggesting that Armenia is willing to explore the return of Azerbaijani territory seized during the Karabakh conflict are threatening to stir domestic political trouble for Kocharian.
Both Armenian and Azerbaijani media have reported that the United States, in seeking to break the existing stalemate in Karabakh peace talks, is pressing Armenia to agree to the return of Azerbaijani regions captured during the 1991-94 conflict. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. According to the reports, Armenia is being asked to return anywhere between three and six of the seven areas seized from Azerbaijan. The only area that reportedly has not come up in discussions is Lachin, the corridor of land that connects Karabakh with Armenia proper. Kocharian has adamantly opposed giving back what Armenians describe as “liberated territories” as a precondition to a comprehensive peace settlement.
A recent article published by the Turkish newspaper Zaman quoted Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as saying that Yerevan was prepared to discuss the return of the territories. Gul mentioned a meeting of the foreign ministers of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey, held on the sidelines of the June 28-29 NATO summit in Istanbul, saying that the Armenian participant, Vartan Oskanian, declared: “We [Armenia] can withdraw from all territories except Karabakh.” Oskanian subsequently denied making any such statement during the meeting.
Kocharian’s ambiguous comments during a June 23 session of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) helped fuel speculation about a possible deal. Kocharian stated at one point that the question of what Azerbaijani insists are “occupied lands” could have been settled long ago if Baku had implemented the so-called Key West principles, which reportedly mandated that Armenia vacate captured Azerbaijani territory. He also emphasized that any potential handover would have to be part of overall Karabakh settlement.
“We are ready for serious negotiations on a full-scale solution to the conflict,” Armenia Today reported Kocharian as telling PACE. “That is exactly why we have accepted the last formula for resolution offered by international mediators which, unfortunately, [was] rejected by Azerbaijan.”
Some Armenian observers have speculated that Kocharian may have been seeking to prepare Armenian public opinion for a policy shift on the territory handover issue. Azerbaijan has denied that any bargain was struck during the Key West peace talks in 2001.
The speculation swirling around the Karabakh issue comes at an awkward political moment for Kocharian. Though opposition coalition protests that roiled Yerevan this spring have been suspended, Kocharian critics remain committed to a six-month boycott of the Armenian parliament. Despite the coalition’s relative weaknesses, any effort to return Azerbaijani territory could potentially give the opposition an issue with which it could inflict considerable damage on Kocharian’s administration.
Kocharian is no doubt mindful of the circumstances that led to his rise to the presidency. In 1998, the willingness of then-president Levon Ter-Petrosian to embrace a gradual approach to a Nagorno-Karabakh settlement sparked a chain of events that led to his forced resignation.
A June 25 opinion poll, carried out by the Armenian Center for National and International Studies, underscored the risks for Kocharian. It found that only 1 percent of the 1,950 respondents polled nationwide believed that the captured territories should be returned to Azerbaijan. By contrast, 45.5 percent wanted the lands to remain under Armenian control. Another 11.2 percent called for the regions to be equally divided between Armenia and Azerbaijan, while just under a third said that they should be made part of Nagorno-Karabakh. At the same time, only 2.5 percent of the survey’s respondents expressed trust in the Armenian authorities to resolve the Karabakh stalemate.
Meanwhile, there are signs coming out of Azerbaijan that Baku’s Karabakh negotiating position is hardening. In July 16 talks with the OSCE Minsk Group, which oversees the Karabakh peace process, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov and Defense Minister Safar Abiyev maintained that Armenia must meet four 1993 UN resolutions that call for the country’s unconditional withdrawal from land outside of Karabakh. During a public appearance July 20, Aliyev vowed that Azerbaijan “would liberate its occupied territories at any cost,” the Turan news agency reported.
The Minsk Group’s US, French and Russian co-chairmen — Steven Mann, Henri Jacolin and Yuri Merzlyakov — cautioned that the two countries’ failure to compromise could lead to a resumption of hostilities over Karabakh. Concerns about a renewed outbreak of fighting have risen in recent weeks.
Editor’s Note: Samvel Martirosyan is a Yerevan-based journalist and political analyst.
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