CIRCLE OF DOOM

It is now 20 years in May this year since the signing of the Bishkek Protocol on a cease-fire which put an end to active combat operations in the Armenia-Azerbaijan war for Nagornyy Karabakh. But years of negotiations carried out under the aegis of the OSCE's Minsk Group have not brought any significant result.

The problem remains unsolved

It is certainly not a case of the mediators - the US, Russia and France - being idle all these years and there has been no shortage of ideas both from the co-chairs of the Minsk Group and experts from the two countries. One recalls the proposal on the territorial exchange of Armenia's Megri for Azerbaijan's Nagornyy Karabakh, the idea of a so-called common state and even, as an integral part of a settlement, an initiative to drive a tunnel between the main part of Azerbaijan and the Naxcivan Autonomous Republic. But all this has been rejected by the parties in the conflict. Analysts believe that the sides came closest to a settlement of the conflict at the end of the 1990s when Armenia tended to be constructive. However, we all know how this ended. Armenian President Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who had intended to withdraw Armenian troops from the conflict zone and return a number of territories to Azerbaijan, resigned in February 1998 under pressure from representatives of the "Karabakh clan" and subsequent Armenian presidents Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan. And in October 1999 a terrorist act took place in the Armenian parliament. One of the main explanations for the terrorist act (incidentally, it has still not been fully revealed) was to sabotage the signing by Armenia of a document at the November summit of the OSCE in Istanbul inferring concessions by Yerevan on the Karabakh question.

The outcome was that Nagornyy Karabakh and seven other Azerbaijani regions around it remain under Armenian occupation.

So far there has been no headway

As already mentioned, the main mediators in a Karabakh settlement - the co-chairs of the OSCE's Minsk Group - are Russia, the US and France, which represents the interests of the whole European Union. Each of them clearly has its own interests in the region. The composition of the mediators has been decided in such a way as to even out international interests in the region and find the most balanced formula for a solution to the conflict. Until recently the three mediators have been able to coordinate their activities in this direction. However, the recent events around Ukraine and the contradictory positions on them of the West and Russia have given rise to serious doubts that they will succeed in reaching a common denominator on Karabakh, either.  

First violin in this trio is, of course, Russia because of its historic links with the region of the conflict and its corresponding scope for influence. However, subsequent circumstances have substantially slowed down this process. Russia is trying to be impartial as a mediator, trying to counterbalance its military-political cooperation with Armenia (whom the Kremlin regards as its only strategic ally in the region) with the development of military and trade-and-economic contacts with Azerbaijan. However, the regular statements by individual Russian representatives about the need for Russia to annex Nagornyy Karabakh based on the Crimean scenario cannot fail to alarm Baku. One of the most recent to "stand out" in this regard was Russia's ambassador to Armenia Ivan Volynkin, who said that the events in Crimea could become a precedent for Nagornyy Karabakh.

Baku has just as many questions for the Americans. The US is the only country that is regularly supporting the Karabakh separatists with finance, packaged as humanitarian aid to a region suffering from conflict. At the same time, the Azerbaijani refugees and forced migrants who, essentially, should be the main targets for this aid, are being completely forgotten.

Plus the fact that today the United States in the Minsk Group has shown itself to be the most odious mediator throughout the whole period of the negotiations. The American representative's affinity to the Armenian lobby and his excessive focus on posting ambiguous and at times irrational comments for a diplomat of his status about Karabakh on Twitter had led to a situation where Baku was about to petition the acting chairman of the OSCE for the recall of James Warlick from the office of co-chair of the MG.

The replacement of the co-chair of the OSCE's Minsk Group from France is expected soon. Replacing Jacques Faure will be an experienced diplomat, the current French ambassador to Moldova Pierre Andrieu. But should one expect any success from the exchange of a French diplomat in a matter which is hardly one of France's priorities or, indeed, the priorities of the whole European Union?

Besides, in the context of the global differences between Russia and the US on the key issues of international security policy, of which a Karabakh settlement is a part, it would be na?ve to expect any activity on Karabakh on the part of the EU which itself is bogged down in a mire of domestic problems.

Moreover, Azerbaijan is generally more inclined towards a review of the mediation format. Recently, the republic's Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov said that bringing in Turkey and Germany as mediators could help to revive the process.

A pyrrhic victory

The last two Armenian presidents, unlike their predecessors, have shown that one should not expect any concessions from them in a Karabakh settlement. The Armenians continue to insist on the independence of Nagornyy Karabakh from Azerbaijan, and ideally the annexation of this region to Armenia. Moreover, Armenians have even started to refuse returning the districts adjacent to Nagornyy Karabakh. However, all efforts to legitimize the status quo which has arisen as a result of the armed aggression against a neighbouring country have been futile. The Armenians may boast about the recognition in recent months of the "independence" of the so-called "Nagornyy Karabakh Republic" by the legislative bodies of individual states in the USA which, however, in the opinion of experts, will not in any way reflect on the present status of Nagornyy Karabakh, which is still recognized by the international community as an integral part of the Azerbaijani Republic.

But what price is Armenia paying for the continued occupation of a part of Azerbaijani territory?

First of all, a depressing socio-economic situation. The frantic attempts by the Armenian authorities to improve the situation or at least distract the people from their everyday problems by the threat of a war in Karabakh and similar "threats" from outside are not having any effect. The man-in-the-street, who just wants a normal life, cannot be distracted from the real problems that have been brought about by a low growth of GDP, the failure of the pension reform, unemployment and the strong dependence of domestic food prices on the price of Russian-supplied gas. At the same time, Armenia's political dependence on Russia deepens to the detriment, as more and more people believe, of Armenia's sovereignty.

The consequence of all this is a disastrous demographic situation due to mass emigration. According to official figures alone, in the first three months of this year about 28,500 people left Armenia and have not returned. In 2000-2013 alone 297,000 people emigrated from Armenia. We repeat, these are not official statistics which, as a rule, present a more favourable situation compared with reality. It is not by chance that the authorities still keep secret the results of a special survey entitled "Migration Flows". 

If Armenian people don't wish to live in Armenia, they certainly won't want to live in a war-ravaged Nagornyy Karabakh. Yerevan believes that they will be able to build up the population of the occupied territories with Syrian refugees. In other words, for their fellow countrymen scared by the civil war in Syria even the pitiful situation on the occupied Azerbaijani lands would seem like paradise. But this is not the case. With the exception of isolated cases the programme for the resettlement of the Syrian Armenians on these territories has fallen short of expectations.

For the Armenian authorities the "Karabakh card" has long since merely turned into a means of staying in power. In this situation, the question arises: is economically weak and politically dependent Armenia a negotiable party in a settlement to the conflict with Azerbaijan? Clearly, it is easier to reach agreement directly with a sovereign state than to waste time on a vassal that can solve nothing.

He who laughs last, laughs longest

Armenia believes that it has defeated Azerbaijan and has therefore resolved the question of Nagornyy Karabakh. This is only partially true. Because the war is not over, and only its first stage has ended, as Azerbaijan's Supreme Commander-in-chief, President Ilham Aliyev, says.

In recent years, Azerbaijan, despite the occupation of one fifth of its territory, has not only been able to stay on its feet but also to ensure unprecedented high rates of development of its national economy and create battle-worthy armed forces, equipped with the most advanced weapons. All this, along with a competent foreign-political line of balance in relations with the countries of the region and the world powers, is significantly strengthening Baku's positions on Karabakh.

The Azerbaijan of today is not the Azerbaijan of 20 years ago. Official Baku's complaints about the activities of J. Warlick show that Azerbaijan is bold enough today to openly express its displeasure with the activities of any country or individual representative, regardless of that country's status. And Baku is making the world community understand even more clearly that the inability (or reluctance) of mediators to resolve the Karabakh problem will not be a pretext for dragging out the settlement process for another 20 years or so. In a situation of a crisis in the system of international relations and law, when the strongest try to dictate what is right, Baku is making it clear that it is capable of choosing its own path to restore its territorial integrity: the path of peace, as has been the case up to now, or the path of war. No-one has yet revoked international law, despite all its current inconsistencies, and it allows Azerbaijan to resort to either of these options.