Azerbaijanis See Small Chance for Peace in Nagorno-Karabakh

The lack of a breakthrough during the long-expected summit between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian President Robert Kocharian on Nagorno-Karabakh has flattened Azerbaijani hopes for a peaceful resolution to the 18-year-old territorial dispute, observers say.

A visibly disappointed Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov told ANS-TV on February 12 that the two sides had reached agreement on "seven out of nine issues" up for discussion. Reports differ on the two outstanding issues. ANS, quoting an unnamed source, identified the future status of Nagorno-Karabakh and the withdrawal of Armenian troops from the Azerbaijani border town of Kelbajar as still up for resolution. Local news sources, however, reported Mammadyarov as saying that no agreement could be reached on the return of displaced Azerbaijanis and the territory's status. The country "will not make any concessions on its territorial integrity," the Day.az web site quoted the minister as saying.

Representatives of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which oversaw the talks, were circumspect in their evaluation of the February 10-11 meeting. "Despite intensive discussions, the positions of the parties on some difficult principles remained as they have been for some months," read a statement issued by the OSCE's Minsk Group, comprising French, Russian and American mediators.

The summit in Rambouillet, France, south of Paris, was the two leaders' sixth meeting since President Aliyev was elected in 2003. The meeting had been promoted by the international community as a true opportunity for the conclusion of a framework peace agreement. [For additional information see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Before the talks, French President Jacques Chirac met with both presidents separately to urge them to compromise, while US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice phoned President Aliyev to discuss the negotiations.

Azerbaijani media tended to place the blame on Armenia and Russia for the lack of progress. On February 12, ANS correspondent Mirshahin Agayev reported from Paris that the negotiations were scuttled by collusion between Kocharian and Russian observers, citing an incident in which President Kocharian had been followed to the restroom by OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairperson Yuri Merzlyakov. "After they came back, Kocharian took a tougher line and reversed the [course of the] talks by 180 degrees," Agayev told viewers. "Soon afterwards, he cited the death of Armenian Defense Minister Serge Sargisian's father and said that he had to leave for home."

Recent surveys conducted by local NGOs suggest that many Azerbaijanis have little hope that a negotiated settlement can be reached. A February survey conducted by the Rey Monitoring Center reported that more than 38 percent of 682 respondents believed that military force was the best option for resolving the Karabakh conflict.

Some local analysts argue that Azerbaijanis, frustrated by the protracted Karabakh negotiations, will begin to look more favorably on a military solution to the conflict. International observers have pointed to increased military expenditures – the defense budget has more than tripled since 2004 to stand at $600 million for 2006. "The war option today is still not realistic. But society's support for war will grow stronger. It has already been increasing each year," commented military expert Azad Isa-zadeh. "An indicator of this trend is the fact that diplomatic exchanges are now viewed very negatively. Even government officials are condemning contacts with Armenians."

Most international analysts forecast that the Armenian side would eventually accept a step-by-step plan for settlement (freeing the occupied territories around Karabakh and letting Azerbaijani Internally Displaced Persons, or IDPs, return home) in exchange for an agreement by Azerbaijan to hold a referendum in the conflict area on the territory's independence. Armenian officials to date have not commented on their assessment of the summit or willingness to proceed with such a plan. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

The talks will be continued in Washington in early March, when the OSCE Minsk Group's co-chairs will meet to analyze the results of the Paris meeting.