WARLICK'S FIASCO OR MEDIATORS' PARALYSIS

It is quite obvious that it is impossible to break the deadlock in the peaceful settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagornyy Karabakh conflict. At the end of last year, after nearly a two-year break, the first meeting took place between Presidents Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan. Recently, Foreign Ministers Elmar Mammadyarov and Edvard Nalbandyan held talks in Moscow, while the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, who are mediating the peace settlement, met and discussed the situation in Warsaw. However, some activity in the negotiation process has not only failed to produce concrete results, but also acquired a graphic nature. All this is happening against the backdrop of tensions increasing from time to time on the temporary ceasefire line between the Armenian and Azerbaijani armed forces. Simultaneously, there is a sharp deterioration of the international situation in connection with Russia's actions in the Crimea and in the southeastern regions of Ukraine, which run counter to the norms of international law.

It would seem that in this challenging situation, the OSCE Minsk Group should, if they are unable to present the parties with new ideas or proposals for discussion, at least refrain from statements and actions that may harm the negotiations. But, unfortunately, objectivity and impartiality fail some former and current Minsk Group co-chairs - they allow themselves to make statements that go beyond the agreed international mandate.

It is not even worth talking about one of these most famous ex-chairmen of the Minsk Group from Russia, Vladimir Kazimirov - he is well-known to the Azerbaijani public. Stepping down to "take a rest", this "diplomat" has become a direct attorney for the occupying side, who he, in fact, has always been. But the resignation of Kazimirov untied his hands and now he tirelessly infests the Russian media with his perverted descriptions of recent events in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, the talks held with his participation, as well as unilateral assessments of the existing situation and the conflicting parties.

I met Mr Kazimirov in the early 1990s when I participated in the negotiations on the Karabakh settlement as an advisor to the president of Azerbaijan. About ten years ago, we started a correspondence, which allowed me to clarify his views on the conflict. Confidentiality rules do not allow me to give you direct quotes from his letters, but briefly, according to Kazimirov, Azerbaijani leaders did not listen to his advice, persisted in their efforts to restore the territorial integrity of the country and lost the war. Now, in his opinion, we have to agree to the transfer of Nagornyy Karabakh to the Armenians, and in order to liberate the other occupied territories, although this is not explicitly stated, accept Russia's military-political patronage. As long as we are unable to fully implement it, Kazimirov persistently proposes consolidating the existing status quo, which is of benefit to Armenia. He expounded these ideas in varying interpretations in various Russian and Armenian publications. I lost interest in continuing dialogue with Vladimir Kazimirov and interrupted our correspondence.

If things are clear with the retired Russian diplomat and there is no need to respond to his vain attempts to maintain the fading interest in him, this cannot be said about the current co-chair of the Minsk Group from the United States, James Warlick. He drew attention to himself with the use of social networks to regularly update the public on the current activities of the Minsk Group. Although for the diplomatic sphere, which is gravitating to confidentiality, this practice is somewhat unusual, as an element of our information age it was favourably received by the public. But Warlick's "tweets" began to cause more and more confusion and then sharp rejection in Azerbaijan. In them, he, in defiance of the negotiation format, promoted the idea of inviting representatives of the puppet unrecognized separatist regime of Karabakh Armenians to the negotiating table.

Initially, through the same social networks and the media, they tried to explain the fallacy of this approach to Mr Warlick. This was also done by the author of this article in Region Plus journal. Through the mouth of the official Foreign Ministry spokesman, Elman Abdullayev, Ambassador Warlick was urged to be more cautious in formulating his "tweets" on the sensitive issue of the Karabakh settlement. The deputy head of the Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan for international relations, Novruz Mammadov, also spoke out in this regard. On his Twitter page, he ironically wrote that, judging by the remarks of the US co-chair, one gets the impression that he wants to settle the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict directly in the social network. However, when Mr Warlick announced his intention to participate in a questionable conference organized by Armenian lobbyists in California on "The way forward and self-determination for the Nagornyy Karabakh Republic", the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry was forced to formulate its attitude more clearly and decisively.

Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov said in an interview with APA that the Azerbaijani side has every reason to express disbelief in the US co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, refuse to work with him and ask the OSCE chairman-in-office to recall James Warlick as a co-chair. "It remains to think about the true purpose of the co-chair from the United States, a country that calls itself a strategic partner of Azerbaijan and, contrary to the official position, encourages separatism and occupation with its actions and leads to a crisis in the Minsk Group and a deterioration in the situation, which is especially critical in the current difficult international conditions," he said. According to Azimov, "even a cursory look at posts on social networks shows that the American co-chair prefers to communicate more with the Armenian community of America rather than with representatives of the Azerbaijani diaspora. Mr Warlick allows himself to freely interpret the rules and principles of international law, which are at the basis of the settlement and, by the way, define the mandate and a clear framework for the activities of the mediators." Araz Azimov said that the statements of Ambassador Warlick show an understanding of the unconstructive position of Armenia in the talks. "Even the undeniable difference between Armenia, which committed an act of aggression and occupied the territory of another state, and Azerbaijan, which is a victim of this aggression, does not encourage the diplomat to observe the notorious balanced approach," he said.

The harshly-worded statement by the deputy foreign minister of Azerbaijan had an immediate impact. At least Ambassador Warlick refused to participate in the conference of Armenian lobbyists. But it is too early to dot the i's and cross the t's in the issue of recalling the American co-chair of the Minsk Group. It is important to find out to the very end if the problem is about Warlick personally or if he merely reflects the trends that prevail in the US State Department.

Ambassador James Warlick is a mature 59-years-old man and received a bachelor's degree from Stanford University and a master's in Oxford, that is to say in the most elite American universities. His diplomatic track record is impressive. It includes continuous service in the State Department, as well as important posts in the US diplomatic missions in the Philippines, Bangladesh, Moscow, Berlin and Iraq. In 2010-2012, he was ambassador to Bulgaria, and then, pending his appointment as US co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, he carried out an important mission as special representative for the peaceful settlement in Afghanistan.

As we see, there is no reason to doubt the competence and experience of Mr Warlick, although it does not rule out that he may fall under the influence of Armenian lobbyists. Circumstances force us to think whether the behaviour of the American representative in the Minsk Group was influenced by the fact that Secretary of State John Kerry, who nominated him for the post, authored the unfair Section 907 against Azerbaijan when he was a senator. Today, Washington is talking about Azerbaijan as an important strategic partner of the United States, which, given our country's role in Afghan transit, the energy security of Europe and a number of other international problems, is true. But we have to remind them that partnership implies reciprocity, and we have not seen it from the United States recently in addressing the high priority problem of Azerbaijan - Karabakh. The rigid formulation of the issue of replacing Warlick as co-chair of the Minsk Group will allow us to find out whether or not Baku can rely on Washington's objectivity and support during the Obama administration.

The problem of the low efficiency of the Minsk Group is not confined to Ambassador Warlick's liberties on Twitter. Occasional visits to the conflict zone and at the same time, very frequent meetings in various European capitals, high salary and travel expenses paid regardless of the productivity of efforts have caused the Minsk Group to be associated in the public mind as a form of diplomatic tourism. Since it proved impossible to bring the conflicting parties to agreement on the basis of the "Madrid principles", the Minsk Group co-chairs have offered nothing but proposals to hold a meeting between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as promote secondary issues relating to confidence-building measures.

The mediators' mission should not be limited to this. It is clear that the co-chairs are only mid-level officials of relevant foreign ministries, but the states they represent are the most powerful in the world and it is high time for them to have their say in accordance with international law, UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions and OSCE and PACE documents. Without exerting effective pressure, it will be impossible to get the process off the ground. However, putting pressure on Azerbaijan does not seem logical because all the above international documents actually recognize Azerbaijan as a side that suffered from aggression. That is to say international law is on the side of Baku. And there is a large diaspora behind Armenia, due to the influence of which the co-chair countries are not inclined to exert pressure on Yerevan.

But this cannot continue infinitely. No one has cancelled the UN Charter, which allows the victim of aggression to resort to armed forces for individual and collective self-defence in order to restore the territorial integrity of the state and protect the rights of citizens who are victims of ethnic cleansing. Azerbaijan does not hide its measures to improve its defence capability, but has not yet lost hope of achieving a settlement through peaceful negotiations and expects in this regard a breakthrough in the activities of the Minsk Group. The criticisms of the Foreign Ministry and senior officials of the Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan are aimed at precisely that. Taking into account that the Minsk Group was formed by the OSCE, at the last meeting of the Azerbaijani Parliament, Speaker Oqtay Asadov suggested that the Minsk Group co-chairs report to the Parliamentary Assembly of this organization and demanded that this issue be included on the agenda of the 23rd session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly to be held in Baku. The proposal was supported by the deputies and will be formally brought up by our delegation to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly.