CDeliso writes ” Eurasianet.org reports that talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed province of Nagorno-Karabakh have ground to a halt. Speaking at a conference in Geneva, Armenian representatives “…flatly rejected Baku’s recent suggestion to restart the process ‘from scratch,’ according to Armenian journalist Emil Danielyan.
In addition, says Danielyan, “…Armenian leaders have threatened to freeze direct contacts with Azerbaijan if Baku refuses to revive agreements reportedly reached by the two countries three years ago.”
This is in reference to a supposed deal reached in Key West, Florida by Armenian president Robert Kocharian and his late counterpart, Heydar Aliyev.
This echoed Interfax’s report of 18 February, quoting Kocharian as ruling out restarting talks “from scratch:”
“…over the years, we have invested significant efforts in laying the groundwork for resolving the Nagorno-Karabagh conflict… I will not throw away that effort.
…I do not think that the Azerbaijani president opposes any changes but in the 10 years of peace, a situation has emerged in which the two sides are reconciled to facts, so a change of the status quo is more dangerous than maintaining it.”
Brief history of Nagorno-Karabakh
An almost kidney-shaped, mountainous area within Azerbaijan but populated by an Armenian majority, Nagorno (‘Upper’) Karabakh has been the subject of contentious dispute for many generations. Somewhat like Bosnia, it was a Christian region partially Islamicized by the Turks. In the 11th century, the low-lying eastern parts of the Christian province fell to the Seljuk Turks, who left the mark of religion and language on people who were “the direct descendents of present-day Azerbaijanis,” according to Armenian-American scholar Ronald Grigor Suny.
Through the many centuries of different empires that ruled in the Caucasus, Nagorno-Karabakh changed hands several times but, says Suny, “semi-independent Armenian princes” ruled there until the early 19th century, when the Russian Tzar annexed the region from Iran.
A century later, with the coming of the Russian Revolution, the Armenian-dominated province tried to reunify with Soviet Armenia, but the Turkish-supported Azerbaijanis forced them to remain part of Azerbaijan. The communist Kavbiuro promised in 1920 to return the region to Armenia, and resolved to do so on 3 July 1921. However,
“…mysteriously, two days later, the bureau reversed itself ‘considering the necessity of national harmony between Muslims and Armenians, the economic linkage between upper and lower Karabagh, and its permanent ties to Azerbaijan.”
Stalin had already found it useful for his greater Soviet strategy to preserve this localized enmity, thus preventing either Armenia or Azerbaijan from becoming too powerful or independent. Suny adds,
“…For sixty years Karabagh remained an enclave within Azerbaijan, an anomaly in the Soviet system- the only autonomous national region with a majority that was of the same ethnicity as a neighboring Soviet republic yet was not permitted to join that republic. Discontent with Azerbaijani rule grew, as discrimination against Armenian language, culture, and contacts with Soviet Armenia became a persistent practice. Armenians believed that Azerbaijan preferred to invest economically in regions where its own nationality were a majority rather than in Karabagh where 75 to 80 percent of the population was Armenian.
…The city of Shusha, once an Armenian cultural center, became almost entirely Azerbaijani. In 1959 Armenians made up 84.4 percent of Karabagh’s population. Twenty years later they were just under 76 percent.” (pp. 194-5)
After Stalin’s death, nationalist ferment increased among Armenian politicians, intellectuals and the people. This phenomenon was mirrored in Azerbaijan. Both sides have long lists of grievances detailing the murders, perfidy and general transgressions allegedly carried out by the other side.
As could have been expected, the demise of the Soviet Union saw the explosion of this long-suppressed, localized cold war. The rekindled national zeal of both Armenians and Azerbaijanis led to open fighting in 1992, which raged for two years, resulting in additional grievances for the list-keepers.
According to Baku, 700,000 Azerbaijanis were forced to leave their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh because of the war, as were 300,000 ethnic Azerbaijanis then living in Armenia proper. Yet this had been preceded by the expulsion of up to 300,000 ethnic Armenians from Azerbaijan from 1988-90, when re-unification desires began to intensify.
The current state of play
An international mediating committee called the Minsk Group, headed by France, the United States and Russia, was set up in 1995. Yet Nagorno-Karabakh is quite possibly one of the region’s great unresolvable issues. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan consider the area their historically rightful property, the former because they have always lived there and the latter because their co-religionists, the Turks and Iranians, ruled over the area for long periods.
Now, Azerbaijan is indignant because of alleged Armenian violations of cease-fire agreements. For their part, Armenians are especially incensed because of apparent Azerbaijani greed. Azerbaijan already has official ownership of the Nakhichevan province, an Azerbaijani-majority area on Armenia’s border with Iran- and one completely cut off from any physical connection with Azerbaijan, a situation comparable only to Russia’s ownership of the similarly geographically estranged city of Kaliningrad. There is a sentiment that due to this reality Armenia has already given away far too much- especially considering the much earlier loss of the majority of its historical territories to the Turkish state.
While the situation remains unresolved, Armenia feels it now has the upper hand in Nagorno-Karabakh. The province is largely free of Baku’s interference. Armenia also claims that a nearly-finalized deal between the two countries, made by Kocharian and the late President Aliyev, should be honored.
Key West: the agreement that almost was
According to Eurasianet’s Emil Danielyan, Armenia and Azerbaijan
“…have engaged in lots of political maneuvering in early 2004. Aliyev and other leaders in Baku complained that existing Minsk Group proposals fail to ensure that Karabakh would remain part of Azerbaijan, going on to accuse the international community of tacitly wanting to reward ‘Armenian aggression.’
Armenian officials, in turn, have repeated their claim that Karabakh is now an ‘integral part’ of Armenia. ‘Our aim is to win international recognition of the aforesaid, but it is difficult to say when we will achieve this,’ Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian told Yerevan TV on February 12. Armenian insists the only way to break the existing impasse is to return to the agreement reportedly reached by Kocharian and Ilham’s late father and predecessor, Heidar Aliyev, during April 2001 talks on the Florida resort island of Key West.”
The reason Armenia will not consider returning to negotiations ‘from scratch’ is that they believe Key West constituted a breakthrough, and one that should be honored as final:
“Armenian officials say the Key West framework would effectively transfer Karabakh to Armenia in return for Armenia’s withdrawal from occupied territories in Azerbaijani proper. Armenia would also have to guarantee unfettered transport and communication — and possibly open a permanent land corridor — between the Nakhichevan exclave and the rest of Azerbaijan. According to the chief US negotiator on Karabakh, Rudolf Perina, the parties were ‘incredibly close’ to a deal. ‘The issues of principle have been decided, and what is left are technical differences,’ Perina told a conference in Washington in May 2002.
In the aftermath of the Key West talks, according to the Armenian version of events, Heider Aliyev suddenly and without explanation backed away from the agreement. Today, Baku maintains no formal deal ever existed. Azerbaijan’s presidential Chief of Staff, Novruz Mammadov, said during a live video link between Baku and Yerevan on February 13 that ‘there is no {Key West agreement] and there cannot be any such document.’”
Despite the affirmation of the negotiations by American representative Perina, Baku denies that an agreement was ever reached. Instead, claimed Azerbaijani Presidential Chief of Staff Novruz Mammadov Friday, “…certain people thought they could impose some ideas on us, but we rejected them at once.”
Baku argues that Washington actually favors its own side: right now, Azerbaijan is making hay of this year’s US State Department February 25 report on human rights, claiming that it supports its position over Nagorno-Karabakh:
“…as usual, the Department of State recognized the continuing aggression of Armenian against Azerbaijan.
…In the Report on human rights, it is noted that occupation of the Azerbaijan territories is one of the major factors impeding democratic and economic development of Azerbaijan. Further, it is noted that the repeated violation by the Armenians in 2003 of the ceasefire regime led to death of the civilians and militaries.”
Despite stepped up diplomatic efforts from the internationals, prospects for peace remain distant. The young and untested Azerbaijani president is more concerned with issues like the economy. Recent provocations have not helped, either.
For example, Baku gleefully reported recently that its spy rings in Yerevan have yet to be cracked:
“‘…Not a single agent of [Azerbaijani] Ministry of National Security has ever been found in Armenia. This network is still functioning,’ Azerbaijani Minister of National Security Namiq Abbasov told reporters. The minister didn’t rule out the possibility that the arch foe neighbor, Armenia, also has infiltrated spies into Azerbaijan, but said those spies would be gradually found out.”
Abbasov’s comments came in reaction to the recent Armenian announcement that 5 Russian nationals had been arrested in Yerevan, and charged with betraying military secrets to the Azerbaijanis.
Most galling for the Armenians, however, was the perceived ‘heroicization’ of an Azerbaijani soldier who hacked to death an Armenian colleague on 19 February- ironically, at a NATO ‘Partnership for Peace’ conference in Hungary. Emil Danielyan relays that for the Yerevan daily ‘Aravot,’ “…this is a political murder provoked by that country’s government which has been pursuing a policy of hatred towards Armenians and filling Azerbaijani hearts with hostility.”
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