Nagorno-Karabakh Searching for a Solution: Peaceworks: Publications: U.S. Institute of Peace

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Release Date:
December 1998

Nagorno-Karabakh Searching for a Solution

Obstacles and Opportunities for a Settlement
Comparisons with Other Conflicts

Obstacles to Finding a Settlement
According to Edward Walker of Stanford University and the Hoover Institution, six factors present serious obstacles to reaching a settlement in the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. The first is the extent of mutual and historical mistrust between Azeris and Armenians. It has become commonplace for academics to attack the “ancient enemies” theory of ethnic conflict, which suggests that certain ethnic groups have harbored a mutual hatred for cen turies and that only the strong hand of a repressive state can contain those hatreds. Most scholars of ethnic conflict in the post-communist world have refuted this notion, stressing the extent to which present-day conflicts are less the result of ancient hatreds than of more recent provocations by “political entrepreneurs” trying to stir up trouble. Rarely is either extreme the case, Walker argued, and though it is important not to reduce these conflicts to manifestations of ancient hatreds, it would be equally a mistake to claim that ancient feuds and mythological sources of enmity are simply irrelevant.

In fact, the extent to which mistrust between peoples involved in ethnic conflict is deeply rooted in history or is embedded in a culture that is spontaneously reproduced varies among conflicts. Each conflict has its own subjective characteristics that often have important behavioral consequences. In Chechnya, for example, the mythology surrounding Chechen resistance is primarily about resistance to the tsarist state and foreign occupation, not about Chechen victimization at the hands of the Russians per se. This is one of the rea sons, Walker maintained, that Chechen fighters did not target Russian civilians during the recent war and why there has really been no “ethnic cleansing” there. Unfortunately, in the case of Nagorno-Karabakh, the mistrust between Armenians and all Turkic-speaking Muslims, whom Armenians tend to view as a single people, is profound, though arguably a more recent phenomenon than is sometimes assumed. The enmity dates back at least to the end of the last century and was greatly aggravated by the 1915 genocide and the subsequent unwillingness of the Turkish government to acknowledge it.

The consequence of this mistrust, according to Walker, is that the overwhelming majority of Armenians believe that the Azeri government cannot be trusted to keep its word, still less to govern Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh fairly. At the same time, most Azeris believe that Armenians hate Azeris and are essentially racist. Thus, though the “ancient enemies” thesis is sometimes overstated, it would be inaccurate to suggest that the historical mistrust between Azeris and Armenians and the legacy of the genocide are irrelevant to this conflict.

These images pose another obstacle to finding a settlement in Nagorno-Karabakh. Regardless of the validity of the claims, Walker said, most Azeris and Armenians believe that the Karabakh conflict is between their two peoples; though “outside agitators” may have aggravated tensions, Armenians are basically convinced that Azeri civilians—not simply the government or the military—committed atrocities against them, and Azeris believe the same thing of Armenians. Thus, unlike the case of the Chechens, neither the Armenians nor the Azeris believe that it was primarily the government of the other side that was to blame for the war. On the contrary, each side remains convinced that the root of the conflict lies in attitudes and beliefs of the people on the other side.

A third obstacle is the problem of refugees. There are currently 600,000–700,000 refugees from the Karabakh region living in appalling conditions in Azerbaijan and another 200,000–300,000 in Armenia and Karabakh. Again unlike the Chechen case, Walker noted, the need to repatriate at least some of these refugees complicates the settlement picture—in particular, it makes it difficult for Azeri president Aliev to be patient about reaching a settlement. On the other hand, and for reasons to be addressed below, the refugee problem in Nagorno-Karabakh is a less serious impediment than in other conflict situations, such as in Abkhazia, for example.

Security problems present another complication. Azerbaijan simply cannot feel secure while Armenians occupy six of its provinces. On the other hand, Walker said, if Azeri forces were to reenter those districts, Armenians in the southeastern part of their country would feel particularly vulnerable. In addition, Yerevan (Armenia’s capital) has to be concerned about its long border with Turkey. This issue is a particular concern for the Armenians and is one of the main stumbling blocks in the attempts to find a settlement.

The character of the respective governments in the two capitals is a fifth impediment to efforts to reach a compromise agreement. The Armenians, Walker said, find it difficult to trust a government in Baku that they perceive as authoritarian, corrupt, and intolerant of minorities; Azeris, for their part, cannot bring themselves to trust the government of a state they believe is constructed on a strictly ethnic basis, a state that acts as if it believes that Armenia is for ethnic Armenians alone. While Chechen distrust of the Russian government could hardly be greater, Russia nevertheless has a more or less democratic government that has committed to a civic rather than ethnic understanding of citizenship and statehood, and one that has formally embraced multinationalism to the point of giving considerable autonomy to some republics (such as Tatarstan). Similarly, the Georgian government under Eduard Shevardnadze has made considerable progress in establishing democratic institutions that will, it is hoped, contribute in the long run to finding some accommodation with Georgia’s Abkhaz minority.

The Nature of the Negotiating Process
Finally, the sixth obstacle to resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute is the asymmetrical nature of the negotiating process, though this factor has changed somewhat in the past year. In virtually all other secessionist conflicts in the former communist world, Walker stated, the national government has been willing to enter into direct negotiations with the secessionists, as in the cases of Chechnya, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and the Transdniestr region. It was also true in Bosnia and the other parts of the former Yugoslavia, with the exception of Belgrade’s unwillingness to deal directly with the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo. In the Karabakh conflict, however, the three main parties, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, had been willing to accept an arrangement in which Baku and Yerevan—but not Stepanakert—had been represented at the negotiating table. In particular, they have been willing to allow Vafa Guluzade, Aliev’s senior adviser, and Gerard Libaridian, Ter-Petrossian’s senior adviser, to be the principal negotiators. The government representing the people being asked to take the most risks, the Karabakh Armenians, was not a direct party to the negotiations.

Clearly, Walker said, Baku made the decision at the beginning of the negotiating process to treat the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as an interstate one, in which Azerbaijan was the victim of a war of aggression and subsequent occupation by a foreign power. From the start, Baku maintained that Stepanakert was only a puppet of Armenia and determined that it would deal only with Yerevan and would essentially ignore the Karabakh Armenians. This was in part so that the Azeris could explain away their military defeat (and their continued failure to reverse those defeats), especially when the extent of Russian military support for Armenia became clear. This stance also fit well with Baku’s strategy of pressuring Karabakh indirectly by isolating Armenia politically and economically. Azerbaijan’s refusal to deal directly with Stepanakert also had advantages for the Armenians. Yerevan was able to legitimize its claim that it had a direct interest in Karabakh and that its own strategic and security concerns had to be acknowledged, and Stepanakert was able to institutionalize its relationship with Armenia. In addition, Stepanakert was able to allow Yerevan to carry the burden of negotiating without having to justify any compromises to its own people.

Unfortunately, this arrangement probably produced more problems than it solved, Walker said. First of all, it created an almost impossible political dilemma for President Ter-Petrossian—and almost certainly was a factor in his downfall. In negotiating over Karabakh, Ter-Petrossian had to consider not only the position of Baku, but also the preferences of the Armenian electorate, the Armenian political elite (not one and the same thing), the Minsk co-chairs, the international community generally and Washington and Moscow particularly, and, most important, the leadership and populace in Karabakh. This required an extraordinarily difficult balancing act.

Second, it may have been better for Baku to state publicly from the beginning that Azerbaijan considers the Karabakh conflict to be an internal affair that needs to be worked out between Baku and Stepanakert. Baku could have accepted that the government in Stepan akert genuinely represents the Karabakh Armenians; that Stepanakert is, in fact, the party to the conflict in a way that Yerevan is not; and that the Minsk process should always have included the direct participation of Stepanakert. Furthermore, Walker contended, Baku could have taken the position that Armenia is interfering in Azerbaijan’s internal affairs by its economic, military, and political support for Karabakh and by its failure to close the Lachin corridor, which passes through Azeri territory, and that until Baku and Stepana kert reach an agreement, Turkey’s embargo on Armenia should stay in place.

The fact that Turkey has been pushing so hard to have a main export pipeline go from Azerbaijani oil fields to its Mediterranean port of Ceyhan should be sufficient leverage for Baku to keep the embargo in place. Walker noted that although Baku has been unwilling to deal directly with Stepanakert on the issue of status, there have been a few meetings that have included representatives of these two governments in the past year. Nevertheless, these meetings were very much out of the public spotlight, leaving most people in Karabakh and Armenia with the perception that Karabakh is being left out of the Minsk Group process entirely. If that perception were addressed, it might change some attitudes. In fact, Remler said, it is the government of Nagorno-Karabakh that is refusing to participate in direct, institutionalized negotiations with Baku.

With a perspective from Baku, Jayhun Molla-zade of the U.S.-Azerbaijan Council pointed out that Azerbaijan considers that it made a great concession simply by allowing Karabakh representatives to be present at the Minsk talks. Baku would not object to sitting down to direct negotiations with Stepanakert; the issue is negotiations about what—the status of Nagorno-Karabakh? Security? Measures of autonomy? Anything but the matter of independence for Karabakh could be negotiated directly, Molla-zade said, and if Kara bakh accepts Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, Baku will sit down with them and negotiate. Walker reiterated that it would be entirely in Azerbaijan’s interests to negotiate directly with Stepanakert, noting that Russia is dealing directly with Chechnya and Georgia with Abkhazia in their disputes, and without any preconditions. In other words, neither the Russian nor the Georgian government has said that the Chechens or Abkhaz must accept the country’s territorial integrity before they will sit down to negotiations. However, Molla-zade said, neither the Chechens nor the Abkhaz have the backing of a “mother country” that is the third party to the dispute, in this case Armenia. Nevertheless, said Walker, it would be in Azerbaijan’s interest to deal directly with Stepanakert alone, with the understanding that the dispute is essentially an internal affair.

Opportunities
In spite of these considerable obstacles, there are factors in the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh that provide a strong incentive to finding a settlement, Walker suggested. The first factor involves refugees. Karabakh Armenians now occupy a significant amount of territory outside Karabakh proper, from where most of the refugees in Azerbaijan come. Thus, Baku has a substantial incentive to agree to a first-stage settlement that will allow these refugees to return to their homes. Unlike the case of Abkhazia, where many more Georgians than Abkhaz lived before the war and where Georgians were dispersed through out the territory, repatriation to the occupied districts in Azerbaijan would be relatively easy to effect, once Karabakh agreed to withdraw its forces from those territories. Moreover, the number of Armenians who fled to Karabakh from surrounding districts in Azerbaijan and the number of Azeris who fled from Karabakh are roughly the same, as are the numbers of each who fled to the other country. Thus, there will be a rough balance between refugee populations once the 500,000 Azeris from the occupied districts are repatriated, making it somewhat easier for both sides to accept that full repatriation, however fair, is probably an impractical goal.

Second—and very important in light of the profound and pervasive mistrust outlined above—Nagorno-Karabakh is rather peripheral to the national myths of both peoples, Armenians and Azeris, despite what they sometimes argue. In other words, Walker suggested, Karabakh is not centuries-old “sacred soil” to either people, except perhaps for those who actually grew up and owned property there. The traditional heartland of Armenia is, after all, in eastern Anatolia, and while the town of Shusha may have been a significant Armenian settlement at one time, it is difficult now for Armenians to argue that Nagorno-Karabakh is somehow central to Armenian history or culture. In fact, Karabakh Armenians frequently point out that, until this recent war, they were looked down upon by Armenian nationals as provincials. Similarly, though there are some significant historical monuments and mosques in Karabakh, Azeris cannot genuinely claim that Karabakh has a central place in their national mythology. This makes it easier for Baku to accept a settlement that gives them de jure sovereignty over the region but gives de facto independence to Stepanakert (which was the essence of the Minsk Group proposal that was almost agreed to at the end of 1997).

The topography of the region presents a third opportunity to facilitate a settlement. The region’s mountainous landscape would make it difficult for Azerbaijan to launch an offensive against either Armenia or Karabakh, Walker asserted. It would also give the Karabakh Armenians additional time to respond militarily should Baku decide to violate a first-stage agreement by moving troops into what will presumably be a demilitarized zone in the formerly occupied districts. Fourth, there are powerful economic pressures on both parties, especially on the Armenians, to reach a settlement. These kinds of pressures exist in other secessionist conflicts in the former Soviet Union, but they are particularly weighty in this case.

Finally, Walker said, the Karabakh conflict is getting more attention from the international community. The international community, as well as the United States, has been far more active in trying to promote a settlement in Karabakh than in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Chechnya, Transdniestr, or even Tajikistan, which has increased the likelihood that a political settlement will be reached in Karabakh.

The Ter-Petrossian Resignation
It is possible, Walker suggested, to see Armenian president Ter-Petrossian’s resignation in February 1998 as a negative consequence of the international attention mentioned above. Indeed, many observers of Armenian politics concluded that it was Ter-Petrossian’s caving in to pressure from the OSCE’s Minsk Group to accept a first-stage settlement that resulted in the widespread domestic pressure on him to resign. The implication of this interpre tation is that the Minsk Group should not have put such pressure on the Ter-Petrossian government—or even that it should not have gotten involved in the first place. In fact, Walker said, it is not clear that there was any greater pressure on Armenia last year than in the past. Rather, Ter-Petrossian appears to have believed that it was in Armenia’s and Karabakh’s long-term interest, particularly economic interest, to accept the Minsk proposal as a basis for negotiation. Prime Minister Kocharian and the Nagorno-Karabakh leadership, however, disagreed. The conflict, then, was over different assessments of long-term interests, not over whether it was appropriate for Armenia to make compromises in the face of undue pressure from the international community. In any case, it is impossible to know fully the extent to which opposition to Ter-Petrossian was synonymous with opposition to the Minsk Group plan.

This is not to say that international pressure to reach a settlement has been inconsequential. It is important to understand exactly how close the parties to the conflict came to accepting the Minsk Group’s plan, Walker contended. Though it is true that outside actors are rarely able merely to impose solutions on the parties to secessionist conflicts, in this case the extent of international pressure on all parties moved them very close to a resolution, despite the fact that, of all the secessionist conflicts in the former Soviet Union, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict seemed the least likely candidate for a settlement. What blocked the agreement in the end was the Stepanakert leadership’s determination that the risks of compromise were not worth the gains, based on the conviction that their position would not weaken over time despite the oil revenues that are expected to be flowing into Baku in a few years. Different leaders in Stepanakert might have reached a different conclusion. The important point, Walker said, is that without the mediation efforts of the Minsk Group, or external pressure, it is unlikely that there would have been any chance for a settlement. Thus, it cannot be said that Ter-Petrossian’s resignation is an indication that the Minsk process is or was somehow fruitless or even harmful.

The Oil Factor
There has been a tendency to misconstrue the importance that oil and pipeline-routing politics have had on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Walker contended. A first misconception is that it is only oil that dictates U.S. policy in the region or that oil pushed the United States to put undue pressure on Armenia last year to compromise. Yet, the formation of the Minsk Group and other international efforts to mediate a settlement in Nagorno-Karabakh predates the signing of the “deal of the century” at the end of 1994, which was the time that Washington and other centers of power seemed to wake up to the realities of Caspian oil.

There were numerous reasons for the international attention this conflict received before the oil issue became salient, Walker said. These include the realization that, because Karabakh (unlike Abkhazia or South Ossetia) is not on Russia’s border and (unlike Crimea or Transdniestr) was not populated by ethnic Russians, it would be easier for the OSCE to play a major role there without stepping on Russia’s toes; a concern that Russia and Turkey, the latter a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member, could be drawn into the conflict; the political weight of the Armenian-American community and its interests in ending the violence; and a general desire in Washington to protect and shore up the sovereignty of the newly independent Soviet successor states. Without doubt, oil has intensified the international community’s desire to see an agreement reached, and it is also clear that oil interests have increasingly tried to influence U.S. policy in the region, not least by lobbying hard for a lifting of Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act, which limits U.S. aid to Azerbaijan. Nevertheless, Walker maintained, oil is not the only reason that the United States is interested in the region, nor has it tilted U.S. policy toward Baku in any significant way.

A second misconception, Walker continued, is that Caspian oil is going to provide the primary incentive to reach a settlement. In fact, oil has had at best an ambiguous effect on the negotiating process and perhaps, on balance, even more of a negative than a positive influence. First, Azerbaijan’s oil wealth has contributed to a belief in Baku that time is on its side and that there is less need to compromise now because the country’s position will improve in the future. More important, this situation may increase the risk that Baku will eventually resort to force if no progress is made at the negotiating table, because, once oil revenues start to fill the national coffers, it will be harder for the Azeri government to explain to its people why Azeri lands are still occupied by the Armenians.

Furthermore, once Azerbaijan’s oil and gas production facilities and pipelines are in place, they will be vulnerable in the event of an outbreak of hostilities, particularly as the main export pipeline is likely to run through Georgia close to the Armenian border. This may mean that the Armenians will be less likely to compromise, as they may believe that in the very near future they will have a “hostage” available to them.

Finally, Walker said, it is clear that Armenia’s immediate economic future is bleak and that its current isolation from world markets could be ameliorated by opening up the border with Turkey and resuming rail traffic. This has nothing to do with oil. However, the constant talk about a “peace pipeline” and the widespread belief in Yerevan and Step anakert that they were being forced to make unreasonable concessions because outside powers were competing for Azeri oil and gas contracts made Ter-Petrossian vulnerable to the charge that he was selling out to oil dollars—charges he was unable to counter. The Armenians, therefore, view the entire issue of oil pipelines with great suspicion, something that most Western observers do not fully appreciate.

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