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From the authors
The Nagorno Karabakh (NK) conflict, one of the earliest and most large-scale conflicts on the territory of the former USSR, is increasingly assuming the shape of a protracted interstate and international problem with vague prospects of development. Emerging in the 1980s, still within the political area of the USSR, after the collapse of the Union it automatically turned into an interstate problem of the two independent states - the Azerbaijan Republic and the Republic of Armenia. Moreover, because of this problem both these newly formed states became involved in a bloody armed conflict from the early days of their independence. According to many estimates, the conflict has claimed more than 40,000 lives. But these are only the direct military casualties on both sides, and no one undertakes to give the exact numbers of victims among civilians. The military actions were brought to an end in 1994. However, the political solution to the conflict was not achieved despite the efforts of the parties to the conflict and assistance of many international mediators.
The consequence has been a situation of “neither war nor peace” between the two states, a lack of diplomatic relations, and with the borders between the two countries resembling a frontline. All transport and other communications connecting these countries – and partially connecting these countries with third countries – have been blocked. Due to the fact that the key countries of the region hold different positions towards the Karabakh conflict, it has become an essential factor of tension in the region, turning at times into a toy of geopolitical and economic interests of the world powers, and, first of all, the United States and Russia.
The state of “neither war nor peace” is quite dangerous, for it is fraught with a permanent threat of renewed hostilities. Even if such a turn of events is unlikely (and in the opinion of most politicians and experts, it is really so, at least for the visible future) there are still too many reasons to be worried. First, both states have already suffered great losses because of the conflict and are still suffering significant economic losses due to the conservation of the conflict for an indefinite period of time. The Azerbaijan Republic and the Republic of Armenia, like most of the former Soviet republics, were linked by close economic relations, the disruption of which played a considerable role in the large-scale drop in the living standards in both states. Moreover, every new day of their mutual isolation is a day of new lost possibilities – the potential partners have to turn to other countries. A great number of regional projects have also come to a standstill due to the unresolved conflict.
But the most alarming thing is that the delay in finding a solution to the conflict, the absence of at least a little progress toward settlement, potentially aggravates the search for ways to reconciliation. Unfortunately, both countries have instead developed a stable “image of the enemy” in relation to the opposite side, and most political forces of both countries, including the government structures in Baku and in Yerevan, to different extents contribute to the consolidation of this “image”. But such a situation leads, first of all, to the loss of mutual trust – the basis for any negotiations and attempts to get closer to each other and search for avenues towards reconciliation. Hostility begets more intense confrontation. In fact, only a few groups of people and some public organizations show their concern over such a tendency.
The project that resulted in this brochure was intended as an attempt to oppose this destructive tendency. Its participants – experts from Azerbaijan and Armenia -- created a series of materials, which, we hope, have presented to the public of both countries the viewpoints of each side on painful problems as well as possible ways of overcoming them. Besides this brochure, our work resulted in another two materials – the viewpoints of the two sides on the background and development of the conflict in NK (“monitoring”), and also the concepts of what kind of common economic interests currently exist between the two countries and peoples. These materials are available online (the web address of the Azeri version is www.gender-az.org, the Armenian version can be found at www.dialogueArmAz.nt.am). The brochure itself is published in the Azeri, Armenian, Russian and English languages. We regarded this project as an initial stage of cooperation with the view of melting a little of the ice of distrust between the two countries and peoples. Unfortunately, no progress has been reached in the negotiating process yet. There is still much work to do to bring the positions closer together and to decrease mutual distrust. Unfortunately, it is obvious that there will be much work both if the present situation is “frozen” for a long time and if the settlement process finally gets underway. Even in the event of the most favorable outcome, the process of rebuilding trust between our peoples will take a lot of time and effort.
The main work on this complex project was being completed at a time when the process of negotiations had entered its latest “stagnation” period (mid-2002). Stagnation was evident due to the fact that after three years of contacts at the level of presidents of the Azerbaijan Republic and the Republic of Armenia, there has been a return to negotiations through the agency of envoys representing the presidents (the two countries’ deputy ministers of foreign affairs). On the other hand, the joint statement of the US and Russian presidents in May 2002 proved, as we thought at that time, that the South Caucasus (SC) region might very soon be subjected to a “compulsory reconciliation” that had very little to do with “the principles of law and justice”. Therefore, we were in a hurry to publish this book, hoping to do so before decisions crucial for the region were made. But (fortunately or unfortunately) the world once again was occupied with another region, in this case it was Iraq. And this convinces us again that no one but our two peoples can solve our problem1. It remained only to regret that during the two “post-Iraqi” years (2004-2005), the period that seems favorable for the display of independent political will of the parties to the conflict, meetings of the leaders and diplomats of Armenia and Azerbaijan only proved fruitless once again.
Presenting this brochure to public judgment, we hoped that this first step would serve as an impetus for further steps in the direction of overcoming mutual distrust. We think it important to note that even for us, the authors of this brochure, people confident in the possibility of a rapprochement and reconciliation of the Azeri and Armenian positions and disposed to work towards this, creating this small work was not an easy task. We made sure once again that such an endeavor was a hard search for ways to achieve mutual concessions and breakdown stereotypes. We presumed that the second edition of this brochure would also arouse different attitudes and opinions both in our countries, and within the Russian Federation. But we still think it necessary to start a direct discussion of the problem which previously was held over the heads of the peoples bearing the main burden of the endless conflict.
We feel obliged to express once more our sincere gratitude to the Embassies of the United Kingdom in the Azerbaijan Republic and in the Republic of Armenia which supported us in bringing this project to life. We would like to express our deep gratitude to Togrul Juvarly and Sergey Shakaryants as well as to Professor Rakhman Badalov for their invaluable assistance in this work. We express our condolences to the family of Professor Suren Karapetyan who recently passed away and who was not only an active participant of the programme but was also one of its initiators.
The fact that the prestigious publishing houseMezhdunarodnye Otnosheniaof Moscow considered our work worth being presented to the judgment of Russian readers, gives us additional confidence that our work was done not in vain and it is not without prospects. We should especially point out the role of Ambassador Vladimir Nikolayevich Kazimirov, the plenipotentiary of the President of the Russian Federation on the political settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict in 1992-1996, in the realization of this publication. We express our sincere gratitude to Ambassador Kazimirov for a number of remarks and comments to our text (although we do not necessarily agree with all of his judgements) as well as for the laborious work on the preparation of texts in the appendixes. It is only left for us to hope that the other co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group will express their opinion on our humble work as well.
1A recent attempt to involve the Council of Europe in the process of settlement of the NK problem (see the Appendix for the documents of the January 2005 session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe) may be considered as additional proof to what was said above. This activity has not yet resulted in any positive shift, but it has provided an occasion for a further aggravation of the rhetoric of hatred both in Armenia and Azerbaijan (NK itself in this respect has shown a great deal of restraint).Back to text
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