Contents | Key Points | Foreword | One: Introduction | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six: Conclusion | Author | Map

Nagorno-Karabakh Searching for a Solution

Sources of the Conflict and Attempts at Resolution

Nationalism vs. Geopolitics
According to Armen Aivazian, a Fulbright fellow from Armenia at Stanford University, in ter national efforts have essentially failed to cope with the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh. However, this failure is usually explained by Western observers almost solely in terms of the conflicting parties’ intransigence and their willful determination not to seize the clear benefits of economic cooperation. Thus, Westerners, diplomats and scholars alike, are most likely to ascribe the origins of the conflict to nationalism, a nationalism that has become more uncompromising over the passing years.

     In fact, Aivazian contended, nationalism is no more a cause of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict than it was a cause of the U.S. war with Iraq. The role of nationalism is limited mainly to the mobilization and organization of the two conflicting societies in Armenia and Azerbaijan. As to the origins of the conflict, nationalism as a factor is subordinate to the much more predominant role of geostrategy and geopolitics; specifically, a clash of crucial interests between the immediate parties to the conflict, which, Aivazian says, are Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan, and Turkey, and among the regional and world powers.

     Of the “immediate” parties, Turkey has as one of its foremost strategic objectives the strengthening of its positions in the Caucasus and Central Asia by deepening economic, political, and even military relations with the five Turkic-speaking former Soviet republics: Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. According to Aivazian, the primary strategic goal of Azerbaijan is to strengthen its independence by building and exploiting the oil and gas pipelines that bypass Russia, and to provide economic and military security to its province of Nakhichevan (a small territory bordered on three sides by Armenia). The strategic goals of Turkey and Azerbaijan converge at the point of desiring to shrink Russia’s sphere of influence and eliminate the “narrow Armenian wedge” between them.

     Conversely, the major strategic challenge facing Armenia is to withstand this pressure from Turkey and Azerbaijan in order to ensure its long-term security. The threat from Tur key is exacerbated, Aivazian said, by the fact that it refuses to establish diplomatic relations with Armenia. Only countries with severely antagonistic interests and openly hostile policies between them do not have diplomatic relations. The major problem for Armenia, Aivazian maintained, is to survive as a state and as a nation. Neither Turkey nor Azerbaijan has a similar problem. Western observers view the earlier historical conflicts between Arme nians and Turks in the 1894–1923 period and the more recent Armenian-Azeri dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh as separate developments; in contrast, the Armenians, Azeris, and Turks view the Karabakh conflict as a continuation of earlier conflicts, and their stra tegic calculations reflect this view.

     It may be true, noted Philip Remler of the U.S. Department of State, that nationalism is not the direct cause of this dispute, that it is not an ethnic conflict in the strictest sense, but that may be a matter of semantics. After all, an ethnic conflict is essentially a dispute over resources, in which the sides are divided along lines of ethnicity; that is to say, mobili zation for such conflicts is heavily influenced by psychological factors—in this case, forms of national identity.

     Aivazian’s view of the role of nationalism was disputed by Nasib Nasibzade, a Fulbright fellow at the University of Chicago. Nasibzade suggested that the Armenian Pan-National Movement, headed by former Armenian president Ter-Petrossian, played an enormous role in stirring up “extreme nationalism” among Armenians. Azeris became the targets of this promotion of Armenian nationalism, thereby easily providing the basis and incentive for Armenians to go to war against Azerbaijan. Nasibzade also rejected the notion that there is a “survival problem” for Armenia; on the contrary, he said, Armenia is an aggressor country.

Outside Interests
Aivazian asserted that the current shifting of spheres of influence means that, in addition to the immediate parties to the conflict, the larger powers (Russia and the United States) have roles in this dispute and thus also have a responsibility for helping to resolve the conflict. The opposing interests of these two countries puts them in an intensive, ongoing tug-of-war in the Caucasus region. Thus, any resolution of the dispute will require concomitant regional cooperation among the larger powers and other regional powers, such as Turkey and Iran.

     Nasibzade agreed that there are outside strategic concerns behind the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In fact, Moscow has some clear essential aims in helping to create and keep alive this and other conflicts in the former Soviet Union, such as those in the Transdniestr region of Moldova, the Crimea in Ukraine, and Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia. After fomenting such conflicts, Moscow is able to step in as a “guarantor of peace and stability” and thereby maintain its influence and control. Moscow’s direct role in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict came to light last year when it was revealed that the Russians had given weapons worth more than a billion dollars to Armenia over the preceding several years. Nasibzade suggested that Russia, with its strategic (and ultimately imperial) aims, continues to be a negative force behind this conflict.

     Michael Ochs of the Helsinki Commission confirmed that, at least in the view of many people in the southern Caucasus, events in that region are a reflection of Russian goals there. Furthermore, it is believed, one of those Russian goals is that none of the conflicts be resolved. Aivazian, however, disputed this notion, reiterating that Russia’s role in finding a solution is critical.

The Minsk Process
The OSCE’s Minsk Group process has until now dealt with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict only on a superstructural level, Aivazian claimed, addressing only the immediate time and territory of the hostilities. Thus, these negotiations have confined themselves to the narrowest possible framework, reaching only the proverbial tip of the iceberg, and leaving off the agenda the deeper conflicting patterns of behavior and strategic thinking of the various parties to the conflict.

     From the Minsk Group’s inception in 1992, its efforts have suffered from three funda mental shortcomings, Aivazian explained. First, the wider strategic aims of each of the parties, with all the accompanying historical and psychological components in the conflict, have not been addressed. Second, Turkey, which Aivazian said is one of the “immediate” parties to the conflict, is not identified as such but instead is included in the group of mediators. A third shortcoming stems from the fact that Armenia has failed to present openly and clearly its strategic and other concerns that arise in part from the genocide of 1915.

     Aivazian’s concern about Turkey’s role in the Minsk process is similar to Nasibzade’s skepticism about the value of Russia’s position as one of the three co-chairs of the Minsk Group. In view of its explicit military support to Armenia, Russia cannot truly be seen as a disinterested observer to the conflict, interested only in finding a peaceful resolution. Instead, Nasibzade said, it is more the case that Moscow would thwart any solution that did not preserve its level of control of and influence in the southern Caucasus region. This is made clear by Russia’s occasional attempts to bypass the OSCE process entirely and continue to pursue separate resolution efforts.

     In any case, the Minsk Group’s most recent plan is, according to Aivazian, structurally flawed. A primary problem is that the designated peacekeeping force outlined in the plan to help implement the settlement would be only a temporary one. For financial, political, and other reasons, this force would quickly leave the region, more than likely before any stability has been achieved. This is a long-term conflict that the Minsk Group insists on solving within a short-term framework. In any case, Aivazian said, the OSCE’s general inexperience in peacekeeping, the force’s small size and mandated limitations, and its decentralized command and control structure also call into question the value of the effort. Without a force for implementation, the plan is essentially unworkable.

Contents | Key Points | Foreword | One: Introduction | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six: Conclusion | Author | Map

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