SETTLEMENT OF THE GARABAGH CONFLICT
In 1993, the UN Security Council adopted resolutions calling for the cessation of hostilities, unimpeded access for international humanitarian relief efforts, and the eventual deployment of a peacekeeping force in the region. The UN also called for immediate withdrawal of all ethnic Armenian forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. Fighting continued, however, until May 1994, when Russia brokered a cease-fire.
Negotiations to resolve the conflict peacefully have been ongoing since 1992 under the aegis of the Minsk Group of the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe). The Minsk Group is currently co-chaired by Russia, France, and the United States and has representation from Turkey, several European nations, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Despite the 1994 cease-fire, sporadic violations, sniper fire, and landmine incidents continue to claim more than 100 lives each year.
Since 1997, the Minsk Group Co-Chairs have presented three proposals to serve as a framework for resolving the conflict. One side or the other has rejected each of those proposals. Beginning in 1999, the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia initiated a direct dialogue through a series of face-to-face meetings, often facilitated by the Minsk Group Co-Chairs.
Today Armenia stands at a major crossroads between a politics based on war and a politics based on peace. Numerous observers have noted that the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh, and indeed the constituency that supports the war over that province and its annexation to Armenia, has hijacked Armenian politics. Yet at the same time, presidents who come to power from this constituency and with its support, like the current president, Robert Kocharian, come to see the issue in a different perspective. Those leaders realize that continued war prevents: economic progress, relations with the West, and any significant gains from the forthcoming Silk Road, and overall integration of the Caucasus with the European economy. Insistence on holding onto Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Armenia plus other territories seized from Azerbaijan also ensures Armenia's militarization, insecurity, and most of all dependence upon Russia.
Thus, Baku and Yerevan have come close to concluding a peace agreement, and a concept of a workable solution for settling the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict exists in the minds of the two leaders, President Heydar Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Armenia's President Robert Kocharian. This is one conflict where a resolution is almost within reach, and serious high-level attention from the West could contribute to its resolution.
Both Western and regional media have suggested that, under the accord, Karabakh would enjoy a high degree of self-government, while formally remaining under Azerbaijan's jurisdiction.
Armenian troops would withdraw from occupied Azerbaijani territory under the supervision of an international monitoring force. In addition, an Armenian-controlled corridor linking Karabakh to Armenia would be created, while Azerbaijan would be linked by a similar stretch of land to the ethnic Azerbaijani enclave of Nahicevan, sandwiched between Armenia, Turkey, and Iran.
Although the presidents face domestic opposition to these proposals, both of them hint that each side will have to make concessions to reach peace.