BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

The dramatic developments or rather the bloody civil war in eastern Ukraine are a key issue on the international agenda in this part of Eurasia. The Ukrainian crisis, because of which Russia clashed with the United States and other members of the West, is the focus of the international community today, especially the OSCE, which is meant to regulate issues of cooperation and security in Europe. This time, Baku, which hosted the 23rd session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly from 28 June to 2 July, became a place of heated debates on this topic.

Of course, the main debate unfolded between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations. There were several dozen amendments from various delegations to the draft final resolution. Most of the deputies rejected the amendments of the Russian side to the points that concerned the protection of the sovereignty of Ukraine, as well as of Georgia (the Russian side considers Abkhazia and South Ossetia to be independent states). In turn, the amendments of the Ukrainian side condemning the annexation of the Crimea and the city of Sevastopol were approved. By the end of the five-day diplomatic battles, a resolution entitled "Helsinki +40: Towards Human Security for All" was adopted (the Russian delegation ignored the voting in protest).

The signatories of the Baku Declaration emphasized the importance of adhering to the principles of inviolability of borders and territorial integrity, the peaceful settlement of disputes and equal rights and self-determination of peoples enshrined in the Helsinki Final Act and called on Russia to cancel the annexation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol.

Significantly less attention was paid to problems in other regions - tensions in the Middle East, the fight against terrorism, and even attempts to militarize the Arctic, etc., although many of these issues were reflected in the resolutions adopted at the session along with the Baku Declaration.

Of course, the host of the event - Azerbaijan - was more concerned about the attitude of OSCE member countries to the occupation of Azerbaijani territory by neighbouring Armenia and the inaction of international mechanisms in addressing this issue. "We need to create mechanisms necessary for the execution of the UN Security Council resolutions on the occupied territories and to ensure the withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from the occupied lands of Azerbaijan," Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said at the opening of the session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly.

The president expressed regret about the use of a selective approach to this issue. "The Azerbaijani people express deep concern over the fact that some resolutions and decisions are implemented within an hour, while others are not implemented for more than 20 years. It is necessary to ensure that decisions are implemented in a timely manner," the president stressed. Ilham Aliyev pointed out that resolutions and decisions adopted by the UN Security Council and other international organizations on the occupied Azerbaijani territories remain on paper. Armenia ignores all these international instruments, as well as statements by the presidents of the OSCE Minsk Group member states, who have repeatedly stressed that the status quo must be changed, and is not going to leave the occupied territories. All it means the same thing - it is necessary to create effective mechanisms for the settlement of international conflicts, and especially Nagornyy Karabakh.

The head of the Azerbaijani delegation to the OSCE PA, Bahar Muradova, urged members of the Assembly, who so fervently call for the restoration of the territorial integrity of Ukraine, to demonstrate the same unanimity in the same situation with Nagornyy Karabakh, which has been maintained for a quarter of a century. She accused the organization of passivity in the Karabakh issue and urged the leadership of the Parliamentary Assembly to delegate more powers to the representative of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly for the South Caucasus, Joao Suares, to help resolve regional conflicts. In answer, OSCE PA President and Speaker of the Montenegrin Parliament Ranko Krivokapic promised to address the issue "more seriously", reporting the presence of "a number of proposals to enhance our potential in this regard". OSCE Chairman-in-Office Didier Burkhalter announced the intention of his organization to intensify its mediation to resolve the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.

Meanwhile, even though the Karabakh problem was mentioned by foreign speakers, it was only in response to statements by the Azerbaijani side or in the context of the same events in Ukraine. For example, US Senator Benjamin Cardin accused Russia of freezing the conflicts in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Karabakh and Transnistria and said that Russia is now trying to introduce the same combination in Ukraine.

If we talk about the outcome of the 23rd session of the OSCE PA for Azerbaijan, it is worth noting a number of points. First, in Baku the foundation was laid for yet another possibility of a peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian crisis - according to the results of the meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations held on the sidelines of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the creation of the so-called Baku group, which includes Russian and Ukrainian parliamentarians and members of other countries to find ways to resolve the crisis, was announced. Here we would like to share Bahar Muradova's hope that the Baku group will not repeat the sad fate of the Minsk Group, which has been vainly trying to resolve the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict for more than 20 years.

Secondly, it would be naive to assume that the Azerbaijani side will not use this large-scale event to promote its interests, especially as the arrival of the Armenian parliamentary delegation at the session in Baku provided an opportunity to pass a message to the Armenian leadership through them that it is necessary to promptly end the occupation of Azerbaijani territories.

The situation in Ukraine should indirectly boost the interest of the international community in other explosive situations in the region. The cynicism of the modern world is that the international community is intensifying its peacekeeping capacity only when a conflict within the zone of its immediate interests (to which, of course, the region where Azerbaijan is located belongs) turns from the "frozen" stage into an open war. A famous Russian proverb says: "The peasant will not cross himself before it begins to thunder." In this sense, it is hoped that after the bloody war in Ukraine, the world will no longer wait for the same thing to happen again in other hotbeds of conflict where the parties are somehow restrained from new fighting.

The consolidation of the states of the OSCE space on the Ukrainian crisis showed that the world has become more attentive to the problem of violations of territorial integrity. And that's why there is every reason to expect that if the representatives of OSCE countries almost unanimously applauded the Ukrainian side's argument that "the Crimeans are not a nation, and therefore have no right to count on self-determination", a similar attitude can be finally manifested to Baku's long-time statements that there is no Karabakh people entitled to independence from Azerbaijan, as the Armenian side claims.

During the session, the representative of the Azerbaijani delegation to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, Azay Quliyev, suggested that the leadership of the organization and its member countries prepare a report on the situation surrounding the violation of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Moldova by 2015 and come up with a draft resolution on the subject, that is to say the same kind of resolution, which was adopted on Ukraine, given that in all these cases it is a violation of the same Helsinki principles. On behalf of colleagues from Georgia and Moldova, who expressed solidarity with him, the MP suggested involving US Congressman Christopher Smith and the representative of the OSCE PA for the South Caucasus, Joao Suares, in the process of drafting the resolution.

And in the next session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in Helsinki, it will become clear whether the member countries of the OSCE are ready to abandon the notorious double standards in favour of an equal approach to similar problems in their area of responsibility.