Greater EU role in Karabakh conflict resolution ‘desirable’

A wider role for the EU in resolving the Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict over Karabakh is desirable, a UK-based analyst has said.

This is one of the ideas proposed by Dennis Sammut, head of the LINKS think-tank, in a paper for Italy’s International Affairs Institute entitled “After Kazan, a Defining Moment for the OSCE Minsk Process”.

“The peace process has not collapsed but has been damaged” following the failure of the summit of the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents, mediated by Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev in June in the city of Kazan, Sammut writes.

The peace process is led by the OSCE Minsk Group, the international body mediating a solution to the conflict, which is co-chaired by Russia, the USA and France.

Sammut proposes a range of measures to improve the peace process, including: greater scrutiny of the negotiating process led by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs; consolidation of the ceasefire; a review of the composition of the Minsk Group; the involvement in negotiations of Armenians living in Karabakh and displaced Azerbaijanis of Karabakh; consideration of the conflict within the wider security context of the former Soviet Union and Europe; and a wider role for the European Union.

“The Minsk Group co-chairs have to somehow find a way of taking the negotiations forward,” Sammut says.

“For long, many observers have considered that the way the negotiations were evolving was too secretive. There is a need for
greater transparency and at this juncture the co-chairs need to be courageous. With or without the acquiescence of the parties, they need to provide a clearer picture to the public of what has been discussed and agreed…

“The peace process must be opened up to greater scrutiny, and the sides – Armenia and Azerbaijan – as well as the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, need to consider if there are other ways in which the peace process can be pursued in future.”

On the need to consolidate the ceasefire along the contact line separating Armenian and Azerbaijani troops, Sammut says: “The delays in achieving progress in negotiations have inevitably increased the tension on the line of contact. The international community needs to put its foot down and push for a larger and more permanent observation regime.”

He notes that the “Minsk Group has to play a delicate balancing act” between strengthening the ceasefire and not being distracted from their primary objective and mandate of finding a solution to the conflict.

On the wider security context of the conflict, Sammut says: “It is doubtful that any of these conflicts can be solved unless the solution is consolidated in a wider framework that addresses a number of security concerns, many of which involve Russia, and the perception of Russia in the region.”

A Russian proposal for a European Security Treaty is one context in which the conflict could be considered, while others are the Caucasus Security and Cooperation Platform proposed by Turkey or a Caucasus Security and Cooperation Conference, modelled on the original Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe, backed by the European Parliament.

Discussing the composition of the Minsk Group, Dennis Sammut calls for review of “the role of Russia that has emerged as primus inter pares in the mediation process; and the involvement in negotiations of Armenians living in Karabakh, organized in the de facto Nagorno-Karabakh republic (NKR), and displaced Azerbaijanis of Karabakh”.

Saying that Armenia would most probably resist Turkey’s expressed wish to become a fourth co-chair of the Minsk Group, Sammut notes that the possibility of the EU replacing France as a co-chair has been more widely discussed.

“This suggestion has been staunchly resisted by French diplomacy so far, due more to domestic French reasons linked to the large Armenian diaspora, than to wider international considerations.”

On the role of the EU in the Karabakh peace process more generally, Sammut says:

“Whilst the option that the EU may replace France as a Minsk Group co-chair is not on the agenda for the moment, a wider EU role is not only desirable but in some ways inevitable now. The new EU special representative for the South Caucasus, Philippe Lefort, has a clear mandate to engage with the conflict and peace process.”

“Some commentators have recently dismissed the EU’s role in the South Caucasus, saying that the union has interests, but not leverage. This is only true if one accepts a narrow view of the region, its problems and its potential,” Sammut argues.

“Whilst Europe has not yet fully developed its material sources of leverage in the region, its engagement with the ideational factors, particularly the aspirations of the elites and the youth throughout the region, makes it a much more important player than first meets the eye. This is even more so in the Karabakh context.

“European soft power is not a quaint oddity in the South Caucasus, but a sharp instrument of diplomacy. As the EU special representative argued in recent remarks at the European Parliament: in the region, the European Union is perceived as the partner of choice for modernization.”

In conclusion, Sammut says: “If the long expected breakthrough does happen, then it is likely that the EU will be a key player in the implementation of any peace deal: through peacekeeping, postconflict rehabilitation and, overall, through the strengthening of democratic processes and the rule of law, that are so essential if a peace settlement is to succeed. If, on the other hand, the Minsk process falters and requires re-designing, then the EU will undoubtedly be part of any new format.”

Noting that inaction is not an option, he writes: “The only option that the international community has is to persist and bolster its efforts for the peaceful solution of this conflict, based on the understanding that this will be a  win-win situation for all sides.”

Source: News.AZ
URL: http://www.news.az/articles/karabakh/49220

Posted by admin November 2011

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