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Nagorny Karabakh should renounce the superiority of Armenia: interview of Rauf Rajabov to REGNUM

In an interview to REGNUM, expert in the conflict theory, Head of the Peace, Democracy and Culture Research and Analysis Center Rauf Rajabov (Azerbaijan) gives his vision of the prospects for the Karabakh conflict settlement. To note, the interview of Doctor of Political Science, the advisor of the Armenian defense minister Hayk Kotanjyan “On How to Combine Principles in the Karabakh Peace Process: Draft Road Map” has spurred relevant views by a number of Armenian politicians and political scientists. The REGNUM South Caucasian Bureau welcomes the Azeri analyst into the dispute.

REGNUM: Mr Rajabov, would you, please, specify your approach to, at least, the visible aspects of the Karabakh peace process and related discussions.

It is quite normal for experts, politicians and public figures in Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh to speak loudly of their expectations and apprehensions. The Azeris, the Armenians and the immediate representatives of the two communities of Nagorno Karabakh have been and are expecting specific results from the Karabakh peace process, i.e. a basic document to put an end to the conflict and to give a positive impulse to the development of integration in the South Caucasus as a whole. This has not, unfortunately, happened yet. Nevertheless, the Karabakh peace process has helped to keep up cease-fire from both sides without external peacekeeping, the so-called “blue helmets.”

REGNUM: Do you agree with the common assumption in Azerbaijan that there is a glitch in the Karabakh peace process after 12 years of cease-fire?

The process has brought no results, with the “neither war, nor peace” status having led to the present-day alarming impulses. Some political analysts, experts and politicians in both countries are now strong in their conviction that the conflicting parties have spent all their means to resolve their conflict peacefully and are wrong in their belief that peace agreements are the finale of the settlement process. In fact, they are an open door into a new labyrinth of tailing problems. It is time to take for basis the principle of transition to the stage of mutually beneficial solution — a basis that will give a new impulse to the peace process. This will show where the differences come from and how to achieve the desirable result. This approach will let us review the whole, allegedly deadlocked, process. The point is that no problem can be fixed by the same means that have posed it.

REGNUM: The Karabakh problem aroused in Feb 1988 when the Armenian deputies (the Azeri deputies did not vote) of the council of the Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Region proclaimed secession from Azerbaijan. What solutions, in your opinion, should Azerbaijan be looking for now — may be, a general referendum?

To begin with, the Karabakh conflict will never be resolved by force. Both sides should search for ways of mutually beneficial cooperation. This requires a larger army of no-force settlement advocates. Peace as the only way to solve the problem will allow to attain agreements more quickly and to resolve other ethnic conflicts as well. The point is that none of the South Caucasian states can be a fully-fledged statehood until they settle their conflicts — and not until then will the South Caucasus be a fully-fledged region either.

This will require, first, considering the political settlement as a dynamic process based on regional relations; second, searching for and developing new settlement prospects despite possible friction; third, taking up the differentiated approach as a conflict solving basis, i.e. to clearly differentiate national and regional priorities.

The ensuing reasonable question is what prospect for the development of a nation, state and South Caucasian region is taken as a basis for the conflict settlement by those supporting military settlement and should one stick to force at all in settling such complex conflicts? The choice of military solution in the Karabakh issue may lead to a result quite different from what its inspirers and initiators might have expected in the first place. Peaceful or political settlement is a process needing pooled efforts by all the parties to the conflict. Here we are faced with a dilemma: to build up relations before, during or after the signing of official agreement?

REGNUM: Can you underline your key principles of the Karabakh conflict political settlement?

I’ll try:

1. Nagorno Karabakh is part of both the republic and the South Caucasian region and all its residents, irrespective of their nationality and residence, are full and equal citizens of the Azeri Republic. The contradictions between the principles of territorial integrity and self-determination can be overcome through a referendum. One will just have to say when exactly it can be held.

2. The format of the political settlement process should envisage a direct dialogue between Baku and Khankandi (Stepanakert) with no involvement of Armenia.

3. The OSCE Minsk Group mediation should not go beyond the framework delimited and restricted by the international law.

4. The strategic line in the Karabakh conflict settlement should be a collective search for solution rather than a haggle, with the sides taking the talks as a continuation of the war and focused on their own win.

5. Azerbaijan and Armenia should demarcate the boundaries of their geopolitical and regional interests and priorities in the South Caucasus. All the direct parties to the conflict need realism in choosing ways to resolve their home conflicts, and so, Azerbaijan and Armenia should give up the idea of using force in settling the Karabakh and other possible ethnic conflicts.

6. Framework agreements with Nagorno Karabakh should be signed — for the Azeri Constitution allows solving such issues.

7. Nagorno Karabakh should renounce the superiority of Armenia in the Karabakh conflict settlement.

8. Azerbaijan and Armenia should outline the scope of issues of mutual interest and sign a treaty that they recognize the territorial integrity of each other and that Armenia is the guarantor of the security of the Armenian community of Nagorno Karabakh (like was the case with the Kars Treaty 1921 giving Turkey a special role with respect to Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic).

9. A demilitarized zone should be formed around Nagorno Karabakh, i.e. the armed forces of the Republic of Armenia should be withdrawn from seven occupied districts, with the units of the Azeri National Army to be moved from present to permanent deployment positions. In a few years the armed forces of Nagorno Karabakh will have to be transformed into internal troops discharging police functions all along the perimeter of Nagorno Karabakh.

10. Lachin and Meghri should be given an international status with international organizations to monitor the honoring of commitments by Azerbaijan, Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh. Both sides should unblock all mutual transport routes; the Armenian and Azeri communities of Nagorno Karabakh should be integrated into the republican and regional social-economic projects and be involved in the formation of regional and administrative authorities of Azerbaijan.

REGNUM: How will the South Caucasus develop if the above proposals are mutually accepted?

The fulfillment of the above principles will result in a common security system between the two republics, a so-called system of internal security that, with Georgia joining in, may grow into the South Caucasian regional security system of external action.

You have not asked one question I thought you would ask: what is all this for? The answer is simple: this is the life of our citizens and fate of the generations to come. Stable, mutually acceptable and mutually beneficial peace can be attained through mutual confidence inside our societies and in the South Caucasus as a whole. And the last thing: the key priority of our activity should be the principle of complementarity which implies a dialogue.

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