Armenia and Azerbaijan: OSCE Wants Civil Society Groups to Help Karabakh Peace Process

As the talks on Nagorno-Karabakh remain stalemated, diplomats moderating the negotiations recently called on 40 civil society representatives from Armenia, Azerbaijan and the disputed region to make a difference in the peace process.

The Azerbaijani-Armenian Peace Forum, held in Vienna on March 24-27, is the latest in a series of such meetings sponsored by London-based International Alert, a non-governmental group that describes itself as "an international peace-building" organization. International Alert has been involved in the South Caucasus since 1996.

To secure attendees' interest in trilateral discussions, the three co-chairs of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Minsk Group, which moderates the Karabakh talks, shared details about the negotiations' status -- the co-chair's first such briefing with civil society representatives.

"The status of Nagorno-Karabakh cannot be agreed on now, as both suggested solutions -- international recognition of Karabakh as an independent state, and its return back into Azerbaijan -- are now impossible," France's Ambassador Bernard Fassier elaborated on March 24. The so-called Madrid Principles, a framework for the negotiations, "are aimed at . . . First, return of the regions around Nagorno-Karabakh [to] the control of Azerbaijan; second: Reaching an agreement about a temporary status of Nagorno-Karabakh."

Fassier's explanation came as a surprise for many of the Armenian civil society participants present; supporters of ex-president Levon Ter-Petrosian have speculated that President Serzh Sargsyan is close to an agreement with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Karabakh's final status that would not be optimal for Armenia.

The co-chairs noted that lingering mutual hostility in Armenia and Azerbaijan is burdening consensus-building efforts. "Our impression is that the two presidents, Sargsyan and Aliyev, are closer to reaching a consensus, than the populations in their [respective] countries are," US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Matthew Bryza, the American co-chairman, said. Bryza called for cooperation between civil society representatives and government officials in improving public support for compromise.

Bryza also expressed optimism about recent developments in relations between Armenia and Turkey, a key Azerbaijani ally that closed its Armenian border in 1993 in response to the war with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The American diplomat underlined that relations between Armenia and Turkey may normalize soon, which could help Yerevan and Baku reach a "breakthrough" in Karabakh.

With an eye to Moscow's 2008 war with Georgia over breakaway South Ossetia, Yuri Merzliakov, the Russian co-chairman, also stressed the importance of mutual trust in the South Caucasus region. Merzliakov expressed regret that Azerbaijan had rejected the recent appeal of the co-chairs to remove snipers from the frontline.

The three co-chairmen declined further elaboration about the negotiations. Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk, personal representative of OSCE Chairman-in-Office, and Charalampos Christopoulos, special envoy of the OSCE Chairman-in-office for frozen conflicts, also attended the meeting.

Participants in the forum discussed the possibility of holding mutual visits on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, as well as online discussions and lectures. Details on such initiatives remain in the works. A final document, adopted without the co-chairmen's participation, agreed with the Minsk Group that "civil society . . . is insufficiently informed and is misinformed." It added that "language of enmity is used increasingly."