Eurasia Insight:
ARMENIA BACKS DYNASTIC SUCCESSION IN ARCH-FOE AZERBAIJAN
Emil Danielyan: 10/08/03

Armenian leaders would prefer to see a dynastic transfer of power in Azerbaijan. Many in Yerevan believe Ilham Aliyev, the ruling party’s candidate to replace his ailing father as president, is the most likely of Azerbaijan’s main presidential contenders to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on terms agreeable to Armenia.

Azerbaijan will hold its presidential election on October 15. Many observers believe Ilham Aliyev will succeed his retiring father, Heidar. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. However, the younger Aliyev is facing a strong challenge from two opposition candidates – Isa Gambar and Etibar Mamedov – both of whom maintain that Ilham would lose a free and fair vote. [For additional information see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Electoral politics in Azerbaijan and Armenia over the past year and a half have effectively deferred efforts to revive talks on a Karabakh settlement. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. But once a new Azerbaijani president assumes office, many observers believe the Karabakh issue will be back on the regional agenda.

Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian summed up the Armenian government’s position towards the Azerbaijani election in early October, when he expressed hope for "continuity" in Baku. "Many [Karabakh-related] issues have been discussed over the past years, and we have common approaches on some of them," he told reporters. "We just don’t want to lose all that."

For self-evident reasons, Ilham is universally viewed as the continuity candidate in Azerbaijan. Indeed, Ilham himself has reinforced this point throughout the campaign. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. "He [Ilham] is predictable for the Armenian side and manageable for other external forces," said Aghasi Yenokian, director of the Yerevan-based Center for Political and International Studies.

Another senior Armenian official involved in Karabakh peace talks explained in September that Yerevan hopes Ilham will not only win the vote, but also neutralize the Azerbaijani opposition. "The stronger Ilham Aliev’s positions will be after the presidential election, the greater the progress [on Karabakh negotiations] that one can expect at the end of this year, or the beginning of next," the official said.

The fundamental issue dividing Armenia and Azerbaijan is Karabakh’s future political status. Armenia is adamant that Karabakh be outside of Azerbaijani jurisdiction, while Baku officially clings to the position that Karabakh remain within Azerbaijan while enjoying broad powers of autonomy.

Opposition leaders in Azerbaijan have embraced a tougher line on the Karabakh talks than has the Aliyev administration, which has indicated a willingness to consider expedient political concessions that boost the country’s oil and gas development prospects. Meanwhile, some opposition elements in Azerbaijan have advocated an armed effort to reconquer Karabakh. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Armenian officials view Ilham as having weak political skills. Thus, he is unlikely to be able to galvanize Azerbaijanis into supporting a renewed armed conflict. Even if armed action does resume, however, Yerevan believes its military can defeat the potential Azerbaijani threat. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

American, French and Russian diplomats, who lead the long-running international Karabakh mediation effort under the auspices of the OSCE’s Minsk Group, are widely expected to produce fresh peace proposals following the Azerbaijani election. Armenian officials say new initiatives are likely to be based on a draft agreement hammered out by Armenian President Robert Kocharian and Heidar Aliyev during the US-sponsored Key West negotiations in April 2001. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

In the immediate aftermath of the Key West talks it appeared that a Karabakh settlement was within reach. But in subsequent months, Azerbaijan reportedly reneged on the preliminary agreement. Armenia subsequently accused Heidar Aliyev of backtracking on a pledge to recognize Karabakh’s de facto independence in exchange for the return of Armenian-occupied territories in Azerbaijan proper.

Azerbaijani leaders have repeatedly denied that any preliminary agreement was reached in Key West. Armenian officials continue to insist on the agreement’s existence, and hint that if there is anyone who could revive the reported Key West deal, it is the Azerbaijani heir apparent. "I am convinced that he [Ilham] is familiar with the content of documents that were on the negotiating table," said Oskanian, the foreign minister. "This gives us hope that of all existing [Azerbaijani presidential candidates] he is most likely to continue the process from the point where it was interrupted."

During the campaign, Ilham Aliyev, has adopted a belligerent stance on Karabakh. Addressing the recent session of the UN General Assembly, he accused Armenia of "aggression" and sponsorship of international terrorism. In a campaign speech a few days later, he vowed to win back the occupied Azerbaijani lands "at any price."

Armenian leaders shrug off the threats, believing them to be campaign rhetoric rather than a reflection of his actual Karabakh policy. "I do not suppose that he would like to provoke a war," Armenian Defense Minister Serge Sarkisian said.

Yenokian, the political scientist, suggested that Kocharian’s administration in Yerevan would also favor dynastic succession in Baku primarily because it would prolong the status quo in Karabakh. The no-war-no-peace situation, he argued, makes it easier for the ruling regimes in both countries to cling to power by undemocratic means.

Editor’s Note: Emil Danielyan is a Yerevan-based journalist and political analyst.