Less than a week after former Azerbaijani president Heidar Aliyev died in the United States, representatives from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia met in Scotland to discuss the ongoing conflict that shaped much of Aliyev's legacy. From December 16 to 20, the delegates showed that some leading thinkers in Armenia and Azerbaijan insist on peacefully resolving claims to the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh territory. Thirty delegates from the three countries met over five days, capping the talks with an unprecedented joint meeting of Armenian and Azerbaijani parliaments. The lawmakers stated that peace would be the conflict's only acceptable outcome.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have stalled on official negotiation over the disputed region. Six weeks after Ilham Aliyev claimed the Azerbaijani presidency in a widely discredited election, he met Armenian president Robert Kocharian in Geneva. Like several previous meetings between the two states, this one yielded no progress. The parliamentary session in Scotland also yielded no official change, but some who witnessed it say it may begin to change the negotiations' tone. "We had parliamentarians representing practically all the political parties around the table," said Dennis Sammut, who attended the session and who heads a London dispute resolution outfit called Links. "The fact that they were agreeing on some very basic principles on which they want to take the process forward has made the meeting an extremely useful one."
Measuring the discussions' success is a tricky matter. They came after four days of wide-ranging talks and set out to establish confidence-building measures to help the conflict resolution process. Delegates repaired to a coastal area called Speyside, far from their constituencies and national press. This was no accident. "Bringing the peace talks to Scotland would allow the leading politicians from the three republics to speak about things they cannot discuss at home," said Angus Robertson, a Scottish member of the British parliament, who played a major role in arranging the session. Some participants, including Georgian parliamentarian Zviad Mukbaniani, said they viewed the United Kingdom's "devolution" of parliamentary powers to Scotland as a potential blueprint for relations with breakaway regions in the South Caucasus. [For background, see the Eurasia Insight archives.]
The trip to Scotland allowed participants to brainstorm freely in many directions. In the trip's first part, an organization called the South Caucasus Parliamentary Initiative held its first plenary session since May. The group, an ad hoc gathering of representatives from the three parliaments, launched in March 2001 and most recently agreed to meet every six months in full session. In May, the organization also set up working groups to bolster the role of parliaments in promoting the peaceful resolution of conflicts in the South Caucasus; on natural resources and environment; and on democratic state-building and European integration issues. It plans to meet, with rotating presidencies, regularly beginning in 2004.
What kind of effect can such dialogue have on official negotiations? Stephen Nash, former British ambassador to Georgia and a director of Links, argued that the Speyside event "provided a useful framework between the two countries."
Officially, the younger Aliyev has not amended his father's policy on Nagorno-Karabakh. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archives.] On December 11, he and Kocharian both expressed willingness to resume dialogue over Nagorno-Karabakh. Elsewhere in the region, the slow thaw between Armenia and Turkey may express itself in 2004. Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian promised on December 8 that "we will achieve the first small positive result" concerning the opening of a border crossing between Armenia and Turkey in the new year.
Each government in the region faces intense domestic challenges. Georgia, which sent delegates to Scotland as peace brokers of sorts, needs to elect a president and new parliament on January 4, after Eduard Shevardnadze's dramatic November 23 resignation. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archives.] Aslan Abashidze, leader of the breakaway region of Ajaria, has threatened to boycott these elections, which could warp their results. Kocharian got through his spring re-election under heavy criticism, and Aliyev has never proven his skills at diplomacy or statecraft. The notion of settling refugees and borders seems extraordinarily difficult even for stable governments.
Nash, the former ambassador, expressed hope that the statement insisting on a peaceful solution could form a framework for future official negotiations. The current nature of political regimes in the three countries and ongoing crises between those who rule and the opposition movements will surely make this translation harder. [For background, see the Eurasia Insight archives.] However, neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan can afford to lose international legitimacy or aggravate border tensions. The spreading misery the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has wrought makes any new dynamic a potential step in a new direction.
Editor's note:
Mevlut Katik is a London-based journalist and analyst.
