Interview with Arif Yunus, director of the Department of conflict studies at the Institute of Peace and Democracy.
Q: How do you see the results of 2009 and the forecasts for Karabakh settlement for the next year?
A: I cannot say that the results of 2009 on the Karabakh conflict differ much from the result of previous years. We have witnessed the same that we saw earlier. There have been the meetings of presidents and OSCE Minsk-Group co-chairs, there have been many optimistic statements about the advancement, about the coordination of main issues, except for
Q: But we hear many optimistic statements both from the side of official Baku and from mediators. Are they all groundless?
A: I assure you that the statements of this year were less optimistic than when late President of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev met Armenian President Robert Kocharyan in Key-West. At that time they said 95% of issues are settled and only some insignificant moments are left. A meeting in Switzerland was scheduled in July of 2001 about signing the document on peace agreement. Therefore, the current events are not news to me. The reconciliation of the positions of the conflict parties is rather important for me than the statements of officials. I have no grounds for optimism in this case. It is clear that the positions of the sides are too far from each other. This is the most important thing that does not allow me being optimistic both by results of the year and with regard to the forecast for the next year.
Q: How do you see possible settlement of the conflict by peaceful means with the provision of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan?
A: We should define what we want. This is the most important issue. Do we want peaceful settlement of the conflict? If yes, this will be one direction. Do we want the military solution to the conflict? This is another direction. Do we want this conflict to be settled for us? This is the third direction. In fact, there is a great difference between these three directions. Unfortunately, all these three directions were united in Azerbaijan. On the one hand, we are speaking of peace, but once a week we are speaking about war. It means that if we say that two and two is four, Karabakh Armenians will say five. Because, there is no trust. And when our authorities say that we will grant wide autonomy to Karabakh Armenians, they are not trusted. Armenians need to know what wide autonomy within Azerbaijan means. Azerbaijan’s problem is that we do not clarify this issue.
We are just saying common phrases which is an inadmissible method. We should put a document specifying what wide autonomy means for Armenians and Azerbaijanis to start discussions on more definite things. But as we do not propose anything and just use common phrases, Armenians think that we will not give them that. Moreover, Azerbaijan does not take into account the opinion of Nagorno Karabakh’s Armenians. Tomorrow Azerbaijan may attain an agreement with Armenia but Karabakh may frustrate the negotiation process like it has repeatedly been in the 90’s. This is not ruled out. Azerbaijan should take into account the role of Karabakh Armenians. They can merely frustrate everything if they consider that negotiations do not meet their interests. I would like to note that when Serzh Sargsyan came to Nagorno Karabakh he was merely hissed off in the “parliament” in Khankendi. This proves most things. We need to establish trust with them.
Q: Is the peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict possible with preservation of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan?
A: This is quite possible. The problem rests in the status of NagornoKarabakh. The problem is that we have not made any proposal to Armenians which they could not refuse. We only frighten them. We do not have a normal dialogue with them. But they are the same people like we are. And when there is no dialogue, of course, any discussion on the possibility of the presence of Nagorno-Karabakh within Azerbaijan today is simply meaningless. I think if we start a dialogue and the normal negotiation process with, we can then expect much. If Karabakh is our territory, Karabakh Armenians are our citizens, therefore, we must engage in dialogue and convince them that they were on the wrong path. There has not been any dialogue for the past eight years. In these circumstances, it would be naive to hope that the Karabakh Armenians will be so mad to agree to enter Azerbaijan.
Q: But after all the Armenians themselves say that they didn’t take this land with blood to return it as a gift or go back to the status of autonomy. How about this?
A: This is an Armenian rhetoric and I am familiar with it. But the Karabakh Armenians themselves are well aware that without Azerbaijan’s consent, they will not get their independence. Armenians’ statements are called bargaining. This is a natural bargain to sell for a higher price. In fact, there are many realistic people in Armenia who understand at heart that they need to make compromises. For example, they may agree to be part of Azerbaijan, if Baku specifies their status within the country. This is the case.
Q: Baku considers that Armenia would be happy to return Karabakh to Azerbaijan but the superpowers that are backing it, especially Russia, do not allow doing this as they are not interested in the settlement of the Karabakh problem. What can you say about it?
A: I think this is an illusory point of view. Naturally, Russia’s role is significant especially if Russia’s influence on Armenia’s policy is implied. But in fact we should realize that the world does not consist of only black and white colors. It is multicolored. There are also different views among Armenians. There is a position of Karabakh Armenians and there is a position of Yerevan Armenians that differs from them. This is a minus to Azerbaijan and we do not try to behave like Russia does towards Chechnya. Moscow has divided Chechens into “good” that implies supporters of Kadirov and “bad” that they call militants. We have never behaved like that and we have even united all Armenians against us. For some reasons we consider that Armenia is merely a single silent crowd controlled by Russia. Certainly, Russia has its own interests. Certainly, Russia does not want the conflict to be settled. If this conflict is settled, the Armenian-Azerbaijani relations improve, this will automatically cause improvement of the Armenian-Turkish relations and this will immediately raise the issue of Russia’s role in the region. Russia has bad relations with Georgia, the relations with Azerbaijan are up in the air and, on the whole, these are not the best relations, but we have friendship and cooperation on the basis of distrust and suspicions. It means that on official level we are friends and partners, but in reality each side is harboring thought of revenge. Armenia is the only country that Russia controls in the South Caucasus.
And to keep Armenia and Azerbaijan under control Russia needs Karabakh to be always unsettled. They need illusions in Armenia and Azerbaijan that if they behave well on Russia, Russia may settle the Karabakh issue in favor... and every side should think that it will be settled in its favor. In fact, Russia will not do anything unless it restores its complete influence in the region. As for western countries, they absolutely do not care in whose favor the conflict will be settled. The most important for them is to settle it. The West has its economic interests in this region as it has invested great funds in projects in the region. Therefore, naturally, they do not need war which does not meet their interests that exist until there is oil in Azerbaijan. Therefore, West demonstrates painful reaction on the possible resumption of hostilities. However, not everything depends on Moscow and Washington. Karabakh is a complex issue. Most things here depend on Russia and the United States but much depends on the peoples too including Azerbaijan, Armenia and Karabakh Armenians. The thing is that if our conflict was somewhere in Europe, like Kosovo, when first, the international influence would have been more active and, second, the settlement would continue. Serbia has in fact agreed to reject Kosovo in exchange for EU accession which means great dividends and money.
In addition, the loss of Kosovo is not a great loss considering the fact that borders in Europe have been removed, there is a single currency, a single army and economy. In this sense, if we were geographically Europe, we could have done much. But we are far from it and nobody needs us. The interest to our region is not as big as imagined. This is the mistake of Armenians and Azerbaijanis because they consider this conflict to be significant and they quarrel with the world for not settling the problem. But nobody needs us. Our conflict is too insignificant. There are many conflicts in the world but we are not in Europe. The interest to our region is connected only to its transit potential and our energy sources. That’s all! There are no other interests. West’s position is that it is not scary if we cannot settle the conflict, the most important is that there is no war.
Q: How can the initiated Turkish-Armenian rapprochement affect the Karabakh settlement?
A: Personally, I believe that this rapprochement will not only help the Karabakh settlement. This will have a very good effect on this process. It meets the interests of Azerbaijan. If we are talking about the outcome in 2009, it was a big mistake of our leadership and our political establishment that we have been captured by old illusions and stereotypes for long. We have used the phrase “one nation — two states” for long, we have been insisting on closed borders between Turkey and Armenia for long without thinking about the reason. After all, in fact the Armenian-Turkish border is a de facto open, the annual trade turnover between Armenia and Turkey is around $
It rests on the fact that Russia mostly keeps control over main spheres of Armenian economy which means Russia has levers of influence on Armenia. Tomorrow, if the Turkish side opens the border, the Turkish capital will flow in Armenia and naturally it will soon start playing a dominating role in the country raising the including of Turkey in Armenia. When joint business projects are initiated, the Turkish capital will start playing a great role and Armenians will become dependent. Then, I assure you, Armenians’ positions will change strongly not only on Turkey but also on Azerbaijan. The opinion that the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border will stiffen Yerevan’s position in negotiations over Karabakh is erroneous. We should not perceive Armenians as zombie robots. They are the same people that want to benefit and they understand that orientation on Russia with whom they do not have even a single border has not yet been effective. Armenia also has a border with Georgia and the war between Georgia and Russia led to the 8 times drop in Armenian economy. This is a disaster for Armenia. It is also unclear whether they will preserve the border with Iran. It is unclear what will happen in this country, whether the war with Israel or the United States will start or the revolution will be launched inside the country: again Armenian interests will be affected. New generations in Armenia are already not pro-Russia. I have meetings with Armenian politicians and political scientists and I see that the new generation of Armenians is oriented to the West, but they are scared. This fear is raised by the Russian propaganda that “without Russia, Turkey will terminate you and repeat genocide” and this fear is strong among Armenians. If this fear is overcome and when Armenians come to understand that Turkey is a modern country, then they will change their position on many issues including Karabakh. Therefore, I have always been for the normalization of the Turkish-Armenian relations.
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