Vladimir Kazimirov: EU Involvement Will Make Negotiations More Chaotic.

As the American side tried to publicly instill confidence that the process of the Karabakh settlement had not reached a deadlock and Russia avoided evaluating the failed Rambouillet negotiations, the European Union (EU) has stated its intention to strengthen its presence in the Caucasus region. The Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG), a non-profit, non-governmental organization which published two comprehensive reports on the Karabakh settlement last fall, presented on March 20, 2006 a new report entitled Conflict Resolution in the South Caucasus: The EU's Role. 

The highlight of the ICG report is that the EU should be more active politically and economically in the South Caucasus and should become more engaged in efforts to resolve the Nagorno Karabakh, Abkhazian and South Ossetian conflicts, since the three "unresolved conflicts have the potential to ignite into full-fledged wars in Europe's neighborhood." The report states that "compared with other actors, the EU can offer added value, with its image as an 'honest broker' free from traditional US/Russia rivalries." The ICG, whose two previous reports have been equally criticized in Yerevan, Baku, and Stepanakert, once again puts forward a proposal regarding deploying international peacekeeping forces in Nagorno Karabakh and the adjacent territories and holding a referendum to decide the status of Nagorno Karabakh.

The publication of the report coincided with the statements by EU Special Representative for theSouth Caucasus, Peter Semneby, that his efforts will mainly be aimed at contributing to the peaceful settlement of conflicts . " The European Union made changes to the mandate for this position providing for more attention to be paid to the settlement of the frozen conflicts. They take so much political effort and recourses that have become a serious obstacle in the way of the development of societies in the three countries," Semneby told journalists in Baku and in Tbilisi . The EU Special Representative's visit to Yerevan is expected in early April.

One of the leading experts on the Karabakh Settlement, former Russian co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group Vladimir Kazimirov, expressed his amazement during a telephone interview from Moscow. "The point is that France is a co-chair of the Minsk Group and to some extent represents the European Union. Besides, other EU member states are members of the Minsk Group as well, such as Germany, Sweden. The question arises: Should all the international organizations take part in the Karabakh settlement? It would not be possible to create a more chaotic situation," Kazimirov told me.

Former Special Envoy of President Levon Ter-Petrossian to the Karabakh negotiations David Shahnazaryan disagreed with this view. "The role assigned to the EU is at least welcome, and one might expect substantial positive consequences in the event that the parties indeed resume negotiations and do not go on with their present positions. In any case, this just proves the EU's great interest in our region." Shahnazaryan said.

The Foreign Ministry of Nagorno Karabakh, too, has reacted to the ICG report. "One may wonder at the attempts by the drafters of the report to accuse the Minsk Group of monopolizing the peace process. The Minsk Group activity is not a whim of individual diplomats and states; it's a work in compliance with the OSCE mandate. Over these fourteen years, the Minsk Group has developed a degree of experience in peacemaking and at present the Minsk Group is the most appropriate format for the settlement of the conflict. However, it must be stressed that neither the present format nor the potential participation of the European mediators can compensate for the absence of Nagorno Karabakh - a direct party to the conflict - in negotiations," a March 24, 2006 statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of NKR reads.

The chairman of the Commission on Foreign Relations of the NKR Parliament, Vahram Atanesyan, noted that any mediating endeavor should be judged on its merits but "the point here is not the mediating organization or its status but rather the logic in accordance to which negotiations are conducted.The equal participation of Stepanakert in the Yerevan-Baku format meetings would give a strong positive impetus to the negotiations. If, in fact, the negotiations have reached a deadlock, the shortest way to overcome this situation is to invite Nagorno Karabakh to the negotiations at an appropriate level," Atanesyan said.

Vladimir Kazimirov agrees - the absence of Nagorno Karabakh from negotiations is protracting the process. "I have always maintained the position - which, by the way, was approved by the OSCE back in 1994 at the Budapest Summit - that this conflict has not two but three parties," he said. The Russian diplomat considers it natural that the Rambouillet talks yielded no results. "There have been no results over the twelve years since the cease-fire agreement was signed in 1994, either. But the negotiations must go on, and one should avoid raising a clamor around the presidents' or foreign ministers' meetings on the eve of such meetings, as is done now. This show must be stopped; this is theatre of the absurd . The meetings should follow one another but there should be no clamor around them. From time to time the meetings should be conducted in confidentiality," Kazimirov said.

The International Crisis Group, too, by the way, attaches importance to Stepanakert's involvement in the negotiating process.

The statement by the NKR Ministry of Foreign Affairs maintains that the precept "Do no harm," must be maintained. "The aspiration of the European structures to become more active in the process of settlement of conflicts in the South Caucasus stemming from their own security considerations is understandable but the means for achieving these goals presented in the ICG report seem to be unrealizable, for they don't reflect the nature of the Karabakh conflict. The positive aspect of the report is that it stresses the necessity of making the unrecognized states of the South Caucasus participants in the process of the integration into the European Union."

The ICG report emphasizes that in order to engage more actively in the process of the settlement of the three conflicts in the region, the EU should make use of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) initiative. We remind you that in June 2004 Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan were included in the EU's European Neighbourhood Policy initiative which, as Brussels officials note, is not a ticket for the membership in the European Union for the three South Caucasian states, but a prospect.

The Kremlin takes an equally dim view of both NATO's Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP), to which all three Caucasian states are parties (with Georgia already having declared its intention to become a NATO member), and the EU's European Neighbourhood Policy initiative. Moscow officials have stated on many occasions that the West, i.e. NATO, the EU, and the United States, is expanding, day after day, its political, military and economic presence in a region that has directly or indirectly been a zone of Russia's vital interests for decades.