The breakaway region of Nagorno Karabakh has voted, but, so far as most of the outside world is concerned, it voted in vain. The mediating trio of France, Russia and US reiterated that the territory's May 23 parliamentary election will not be regarded as legitimate. But if anyone nevertheless wants to know how things are shaping up, de facto Prime Minister Ara Harutyunian’s Free Homeland party leads with 46 percent of the vote and is trailed by de facto Parliamentary Speaker Ashot Ghulian’s Democratic Party of Artsakh with 29 percent of voters. Next comes Dashnaktsutiun with 20 percent, while the Communist Party has failed to clear the four-percent threshold, according to preliminary results.
Only Armenia, which protected Nagorno-Karabakh through thick and thin, has hailed the election, calling it a "demonstration of a resolve to live independently."
The dominant Democracy Party of Artsakh led by de facto parliamentary speaker Ashot Ghulian, calls for boosting Karabakh’s international profile, Prime Minister Arayik Harutyunyan’s Free Homeland Party runs on a reforms platform, while the nationalist Dashnaktsutiun champions homeland defense and the Communist Party, predictably, calls for the nationalization of strategic industries.
No country has recognized Karabakh's independence, but Azerbaijan, still smarting from the recent Turkish-Armenian rapprochement campaign, nonethless placed on the record that no country should consider the election to be legitimate.
The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) -- a club of Muslim countries that features Azerbaijan among its 57 members -- has declared Armenia the aggressor in the 22-year Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict over the breakaway region of Nagorno Karabakh.
The resolution, adopted at a May 19 OIC meeting in Dushanbe, will be the foundation of Karabakh discussions planned at the Organization’s 2011 summit in Cairo, Egypt. “We must keep raising the issue of Nagorno Karabakh at the OIC meetings, or else we will make a step back,” declared Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Tofik Abdulayev.
The Organization also adopted two other Karabakh resolutions that deplore the alleged destruction of Azerbaijani monuments on Armenian-controlled territory and call for aiding the conflict's Azerbaijani victims.
Armenian officials have not commented to international media about the resolutions, but delivered a jab the day the OIC resolutions came out.
The Karabakh peace process has failed because Azerbaijan has shot down each proposal that comes from American, Russian and French mediators, argued Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharian.
"[A]n impression is being created that Baku is holding talks with itself, arrives at some acceptable decisions for itself and tries to present its own wish as the result of the negotiations," the peeved Kocharian charged.
Regional media speculated that Erdogan arrived in Azerbaijan on a mission to coax Aliyev into concessions on natural gas and Karabakh. Neither has occurred. The gas deal got postponed, while Turkey and Azerbaijan played the same broken Karabakh record: Armenia must give up some of the land it occupies before the Turkish-Armenia border can open.
The Turkey-Azerbaijan-Armenia discussions are increasingly reminiscent of the haggling over chairs between adventurist Ostap Bender and theater hand Mechnikov from the iconic Soviet satire "The 12 Chairs:"
Mechnikov: “The money in the morning, the chairs in the evening or the money in the evening, and the chairs next morning.”
Bender: “How about chairs today, money tomorrow?”
Mechnikov: “. . .My soul refuses to accept such terms.”
Bellicose rhetoric from Baku towards Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh is nothing new, but the volume seems to have been rising a bit lately, with Azerbaijan claiming that it could attack anywhere in Armenia, and the Armenians responding in kind:
President Serzh Sarkisian said earlier this year that an Azerbaijani assault on Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh would trigger "serious counterattacks." Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian similarly stated in January that Armenian forces have significantly beefed up fortifications around Karabakh in recent years and are prepared for renewed fighting.
Hakobian said the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic's army has received new military hardware and ammunition this year. "[We] have had quite a serious success in acquiring air-defense systems," he said.
So what to make of this? Anna Matveeva, writing in the Guardian, has a sensible analysis:
Encouragingly, Azerbaijan's leadership is risk-averse and not prone to impulsive moves to suit a nationalist agenda. It does not need a war to boost its popularity, because it is already popular. Rationally speaking, the war is unlikely. But military games and sabre-rattling have a tendency to get out of hand. Armenia's internal political problems can give rise to a "now or never" attitude: since the adversary appears weak, the time for a decisive push has arrived.
Baku insists that the time is up for Armenia to return to Azerbaijan bits of occupied land bordering disputed Nagorno Karabakh.
“Armenia has requested two weeks with regard to the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, but several months have gone by and there has been no reaction,” said Azerbaijani presidential spokesman Novruz Mamedov on May 5. Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov said the same the day before, adding that the key mediators -- the US, France, Russia -- have proposed a timeline for the Armenian withdrawal from Lachin and Kelbacar, territory sandwiched between Armenia and Karabakh.
Yerevan has responded angrily, but did not outright deny discussions about the timeline for a potential pullout. “Some destructive people in Azerbaijan . . . are left with no other options than to offer endless lies, sable-rattling and muscle flexing,” said Armenian foreign ministry spokesperson Tigran Balaian.
