Caucasus Institute director talks straight about Karabakh

Iskandaryan: As for ideas I might have on what should be done, theoretically, yes, but practically, unfortunately, I can’t really see a real prospect of solving the Karabakh problem

Iskandaryan: You [Turks] should bring something important before October. It can be something like opening the border for one day a week or, I don’t know, two days a week. Or open it for a month. It could be a statement, a real statement with a real road map, because they talked about a road map, and nobody’s seen it, and everybody in Yerevan says it does not exist

Iskandaryan: Before independence, Karabakh was a part of Armenia, and this is not accepted by the Azerbaijan elite, by the regime. It normally forces somebody else to follow, [somebody] who says that we lost Karabakh so give us one, two, three, five regions. Karabakh will become independent or will become part of Armenia. We have lost this region. So there is no real issue for negotiations

Iskandaryan stressed that he has only one answer for diaspora Armenians who harp on the genocide issue: We are citizens of another country. We are talking about Yerevan-Ankara relationships…. They are citizens of other countries. It’s not like you can call from Yerevan and say, ‘Guys, don’t talk about genocide’

Iskandaryan: When US President Barack Obama talked about it [the crisis] here, we analyzed his speech. The first part was about Turkey and the European Union, the second about Armenia-Turkish relations and then Palestine, the Middle East and Iraq, etc., etc. It brings some hope

Iskandaryan: We should work together with many countries, but it is hard to do. We need organizations like the International Center for Black Sea Studies to hold meetings. We should know each other

When asked if he thought the Nagorno-Karabakh issue would be solved soon, Caucasus Institute Director Alexander Iskandaryan wasn’t optimistic about the possibility of ending the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan that has festered since the 1990s. He wasn’t afraid to be blunt, either.

“No, I don’t. In the short term and the middle term, I don’t think it is possible, unfortunately,” Iskandaryan told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.

Does he have ideas on what should be done to solve it?

“As for ideas I might have on what should be done, theoretically, yes, but practically, unfortunately, I can’t really see a real prospect of solving the Karabakh problem.”

In 1988, fighting broke out over control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which was under Azerbaijani control, but contained an Armenian majority.

Iskandaryan is the director of the Yerevan-based Caucasus Institute, a postgraduate institute and think tank that seeks to encourage pluralistic discourse in the countries of the South Caucasus by contributing to the development of political science and news media in the region. The institute strongly believes that a democratic future is one that is openly discussed and consciously chosen.

“In reality, what should you do? You should go to consensus and give it to the counterpart Armenian sides, Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh,” Iskandaryan said. “They should give something and vice versa. They are not really prepared to work with the Azeris over the conflict that began in 1988. We want Karabakh inside Azerbaijan. But this is absolutely not acceptable for the people of Karabakh.

“It was war, and in every family in Karabakh, they remember the war. They don’t want to come back because there was war, and you cannot forget it, at least in the short term. I don’t know what it will be like in 20 years, but now I’m afraid that Karabakh cannot accept it. It is about Armenian Armenians. Every proposal that is not accepted by Karabakh is impossible for the Republic of Armenia.

“So if you look from Armenian Yerevan, you’re sure to see that the status of Karabakh is on a known level with Azerbaijan, which means independence. Before independence, Karabakh was a part of Armenia, and this is not accepted by the Azerbaijan elite, by the regime. It normally forces somebody else to follow, [somebody] who says that we lost Karabakh so give us one, two, three, five regions. Karabakh will become independent or will become part of Armenia. We have lost this region. So there is no real issue for negotiations.

“Negotiations are good. Negotiations are going on because of pressure from outside. You negotiate, but you really don’t want to go to such a solution. What you really want now doesn’t mean that the situation will be forever. It is a process. It is a political channel before and between counterparts. There are some places in the world where we don’t have such processes like these. We have another-country-approach included in the process, the United States, Russia and France officially. Unofficially, Turkey and Iran are part of the process as well, and the European Union. So the process goes on. Hopes can be here, but the format of the process is not of a size yet that you can wait for solutions…. I’m quite an optimist; I don’t think that war is possible. But I don’t think the final solution to the problem is possible this way.”

Sports as part of the playing field

Some people in Turkey are looking forward to the October football match between Turkey and Armenia, when Armenia’s president will be in Istanbul. Some hopes have been raised about this visit being a turning point. Iskandaryan considers the question part of Turkish domestic policies.

Although he is considered one of the leading experts on the South Caucasus region, he is sufficiently self-confident that he doesn’t mind admitting that he is not an expert on Turkish policies. “I don’t know if it is possible or not, but I hope that it should be because winning is very important. If the process goes on for years, it will bring nothing. You [Turks] should bring something important before October. It can be something like opening the border for one day a week or, I don’t know, two days a week. Or open it for a month. It could be a statement, a real statement with a real road map, because they talked about a road map, and nobody’s seen it, and everybody in Yerevan says it does not exist.

“We should talk about the political elite’s problems in Turkey, not in Yerevan. We have protests. In Yerevan we have discussions in the analytic community, in your community, the journalistic community, etc. But on the elite level, they are for opening the borders; they are for the normalization of relations. All the parliament forces, the coalition – I mean the president, etc. – they are for the process. In Turkey, it is a little bit different; it’s part of domestic coalitions. So I don’t know whether it will happen or not, but it is very important before October. I hope that something will happen before October.

“With the Turks, it started from the point that they closed the borders because of the Karabakh War. Also the point was to solve the whole Karabakh problem and improvise. Then there were some changes in Turkey at least among Turkish officials. But now, with the process going on, solving the Karabakh problem is connected to the Turkish-Armenian-relations problem.

“I think the best way to view the process of Armenian and Turkish normalization is to connect it directly with the Karabakh problem. We should have progress on the Karabakh problem. This is different from the Turkish-Armenian-relations problem. The Turkish-Armenian problem should have its own dynamic. It should be a problem connected with progress in the Karabakh conflict, but not in [a] solution. If that’s what you’re looking for, impossible.”

Asked about the pressure the American government might put on Turkey to settle the Karabakh issue, Iskandaryan said he thought it to be great. “I think it is one of the key issues in the process. But really I do not think that America has an interest in our normalization of relations with Turkey. Before the five days’ war, it might have been like this, but now [it is] after the five days’ war and the isolation of Georgia, after the extremely bad Georgian-Russian relationship, after the recognition of Abkhazia by the Russians, after much more isolation for the South Caucasus, not even Georgia, but the South Caucasus.

“Now if you go to Moscow from Yerevan with a Russian company, they go around Georgia through Turkey. So it shows us how if Georgia wants to be a part of the game, it should normalize relations with Armenia. It is in Georgia’s interest, as I understand it, looking from the South Caucasus. I think the pressure is great, but it is in the interest of Georgia to know its relationship with America.”

Discussing America led to the issue of the diaspora, descendants of Armenians who left the Ottoman Empire in the first quarter of the 20th century to settle elsewhere. Their insistence that the loss of life at the time be called genocide has often created difficulties between Turkey and other countries.

Iskandaryan stressed that he has only one answer for the diaspora Armenians who harp on the genocide issue. “We are citizens of another country. We are talking about Yerevan-Ankara relationships. We don’t care about what somebody of Turkish origin said in Germany or Kurdistan or Kazakhstan. We are talking about Turks and Armenians. They are citizens of other countries – Americans, Greeks, French, Russians. You cannot stop them. It is impossible. It’s not like you can call from Yerevan and say, ‘Guys, don’t talk about genocide.’ Genocide is part of their mentality. It’s part of their self, their emotion. I have just one example. Their actions against Turkey, their actions lobbying for the recognition of genocide, that was before the Armenian state existed. They are citizens of another country.

“We are talking about the citizens of Turkey. But surely the question of genocide, the problem of genocide – we will not resolve it even if … the borders [are opened] and diplomatic relations [are established]. It will happen someday. I don’t know – in one year or 10 years – but it will happen someday.

“The question of genocide will be in eternity. It will stay so. We should open the borders just because borders in the 21st century are open. Will the problems stay with us? Yes, but the borders will be open. Are we going to try to talk about it? Yes. But the borders should be open.”

Iran and the South Caucasus

Asked about Iran’s role and its recent internal difficulties over its presidential-election results, Iskandaryan said he had reached the conclusion that little would change in that country’s policies toward the South Caucasus region.

“Iran is a huge country, a big economy that is very important for the South Caucasus. About 30 percent of Armenia’s exports go to Iran. They have a huge Azerbaijani community there. The figures are not definite, from 10 million to 26 million. But it’s huge. You cannot really do anything in the region if Iran is strictly against it. Iran has its own interests. So what is going on in Iran is extremely important. But I think that with Mousavi or with Ahmadinejad or somebody else – I’m not a specialist – Iran will keep more or less the same politics in the South Caucasus. It’s not good, but it’s not bad. I hope the situation will stabilize, and I don’t think that something will really dramatically change.”

“I really think that now it’s a kind of crisis, a short-term crisis if you know what I mean. We had a lot of hopes, a lot of hopes from the beginning, and then it was April, which was complicated, but still the road map was going on, etc., etc. It became a question that was discussed with all involved. When U.S. President Barack Obama talked about it here, we analyzed his speech. The first part was about Turkey and the European Union, the second about Armenia-Turkish relations and then Palestine, the Middle East and Iraq, etc., etc. It brings some hope … but in this process you really need change. Stagnation is very bad for this process, so I hope it will come before that.”

Homogeneous or heterogeneous?

“The Black Sea region is a strange region with different animals,” Iskandaryan said. “For example, I had some connection with the Baltic Sea, and it was much easier there because it is a much more homogenous region. We are dealing with people who understand that they are part of a one cultural region and have the identity of Baltic Sea people.

“Here we don’t have it. People are very different. We have Romania, Bulgaria and Greece, which are members of the EU, and we have big countries like Turkey, and then we have little countries like Armenia or Georgia. And we have Ukraine and Georgia, which don’t have very good relations with Russia. We have countries that have nominal relations with Russia.

“We have Turkey, etc., etc. We have Muslims; we have Christians. This is not homogenous; it is a heterogeneous region. It shows that we should try to construct a region of economic, political, intellectual, etc., cooperation between different nations. It is a kind of triangle between Russia, the EU and Iran. We should work together with many countries, but it is hard to do. We need organizations like the International Center for Black Sea Studies to hold meetings. We should know each other. It’s not easy.

“For example, in Armenia, if you ask people – just look on the streets, journalists, academics – what they think about Moldova, they don’t know anything about it. We should try to find ways to understand each other, to see each other, to see the problems within the region. So conferences are steps on a long path, but I hope they will bring results. Because establishing the Black Sea region as a region is very important for all the countries around it.”

Source: Hurriyet
URL: www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=an-interview-with-alexander-iskandaryan-director-of-the-caucasus-institute-in-yerevan-armenia-2009-07-24

Posted by admin July 2009

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