After Key West: A Policy of Alliance Confirmation

By Richard Giragosian and Khatchik Der Ghoukassian

The outcome of the recent Key West talks between the Armenian and Azerbaijani officials under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group will not be apparent until the next stage of the process. The OSCE is to reconvene in Geneva in June, where the true litmus test of the talks will be determined by the presentation of a new proposal reflecting a set of complex mutual concessions between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

It is the Genvea round that will reveal several realities of the Nagorno Karabagh conflict. For the negotiators, the Geneva talks will challenge all sides to commit themselves to concrete concessions, avoiding the delay and posturing that has hindered much of the mediation effort to date. For the mediators, the Geneva round will test the impartiality and fairness of the three Minsk Group co-chairs, each seeking to balance their own divergent national interest in forging a settlemnet acceptable for further negotiations. The devil is not just in the details. We have not even reached the stage of dealing with details yet.

So far, the optimism of the Minsk Group co-chairs remains either clouded in international diplomacy or genuinely reflects a willingness to truly negotiate by both sides. This does not necessarily mean that the divide is not as unsurmountable as first revealed in February with the selected leaks, first by Azerbaijan and then Armenia, of the last "common state" proposal. That "comon state" initiative, despite initial Minsk Group recommendation, is nothing more than a reference point in the talks, reflecting the impossibility of overcoming Azerbaijan's veto power over the plan. The Azerbaijani side has never accepted the premise of the comon state proposal and, as confirmed by Azerbaijan's Washington Embassy press attaché Elin Suleymanov, sees no indication that this policy will change. Suleymanov, an active participant in the Azerbaijani delegation in Key West, notes that the common state proposal is moot.

The absence of any formal multilateral solution to the Caucasus conflicts reveals a significant element of the geopolitical reality of the region. This reality is marked by the concept of "alliance confirmation," solidifying the traditional ties between the region's actors. Seen in this light, this alliance confirmation trend was most readily apparent during the stage immediately following the recent Paris round of talks, brokered by French President Jacques Chirac, acting in his capacity as the leader of one of the Minsk Group's co-chairing triad. As the March 4-5 talks broke up with neither proclamation nor declaration, Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev launched a series of high level, strategic talks with senior Turkish government and military officials.

The post-Paris stage of Baku's foreign policy shifted to a renewed call for NATO, or Turkish, military bases in Azerbaijan. The timing of the Azerbaijani turn to Turkey as an alliance confirmation could not have been worse, however. The Turkish government, struggling to contain the worsening financial and economic meltdown, sought to appease foreign creditors and secure Western emergency assistance. This Turkish vulnerability resulted in the Ankara government's rejection of the Turkish military's advocacy of greater military aid to Azerbaijan and left little hope of strengthening Azerbaijan at the expense of critically needed Western aid. This Turkish economic vulnerability prevented any new sense of expanding the pan-Turkic relationship between Ankara and Baku and led Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit to overrule the advice of the military.

This shift in Azerbaijani policy, however, is far more than symbolic. By threatening to return to the military option and by proclaiming a willingness to host a foreign military presence, Aliyev is attempting to broaden the Karabagh conflict. This move is particularly dangerous given the delicate regional balance of power. By threatening to externalize the Karabagh conflict, there is a danger of losing the fragile essence of a contained conflict. These developments suggest that Azerbaijan's basic vision of a solution for the Karabagh conflict continues to be defined within a perspective that includes a military element.

In terms of the expansion of the NATO alliance into the Southern Caucasus, NATO strategists soundly dismissed this suggestion when Azerbaijan raised it two years ago as both unwarranted in terms of strategic necessity and dangerous in terms of escalating tension with Moscow over NATO's encroachment to its borders. For the United States, such a plan is also notably absent from Washington's foreign policy agenda. The dynamics of the ongoing balancing of the two competing centers of power and policy within the Bush Administration's foreign policy structure also negates such an overtly threatening issue of NATO expansion into the Caspian region.

Leading one of the power-policy centers, US Secretary of State Colin Powell is visibly seeking to contain and constrain the more hawkish position of the competing center comprising Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. These dueling foreign policy deans continue to act and counteract over US policy regarding China, and hold a special competitive sparring session over policy toward Russia. Any attempt to mark a military presence in the Russian "Near Abroad" would only provoke more tensions between Washington and Moscow. What is to be expected, however, is more pressure on Congress to cut aid to Armenia while increasing it to Azerbaijan and, eventually, to derail the limitation on aid to Azerbaijan as expressed by Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act. Overt economic pressure on Armenia, both in terms of promises and threats, thus could become Washington's weapon of choice in garnering concessions from the economically vulnerable Armenian government. Whether this would help or harm the mediation process is another question. The formulation of US foreign policy in the region is clearly tainted by the Bush Administration's collection of senior and mid-level officials with strong ties to the oil industry. Such a taint challenges Washington to demonstrate credibility and sincerity, elements crucial to guaranteeing a fair and equitable resolution to the Karabagh conflict.

With this perspective, Iran's indirect inclusion in the peace process is the most important gain for Armenian diplomacy. It is too early to speculate about a major rapprochement between Teheran and Washington and, thus, a more regional approach to the Karabagh--and Caspian oil--problem. For Armenia, along with the assurance that Russia would not resort to "arm-twisting," as the Russian First Deputy Foreign Minister and Minsk Group co-chair Vyacheslav Trubnikov stated during a press conference in Key West, the inclusion of Iran serves to balance the Turkish-Azeri alliance. It also gives Yerevan more self-confidence during the negotiation process.

The alliance confirmation policy is also an indication that the situation in the Caucasus is maintained within "frozen" parameters. The boisterous assertions by the Azerbaijani leadership threatening a return to military operations should not be seen as serious, and do nothing to threaten the informal ceasefire agreement in effect. A frozen situation is not good news, however. Both sides in such a frozen scenario must maintain their military parity by keeping expenditures on arms and the military unnaturally high. The frozen state of affairs also contributes to regional tension and both sides remain fixed on a virtual state of alert and readiness. In some ways this is inevitable. But the costs are too high.

Both the Armenians and the Azerbaijanis continue to struggle with the difficult transition from the Soviet-era legacy of central planning to market economies and both share the mounting social costs of conflict. Both countries have a common interest in seeking a solution and securing the promised economic aid and regional reconstruction, although it must be noted that there can be no resolution to the conflict without an end to the blockades and disruptions of regional trade. But both the promises of economic aid, as well as the threats of economic coercion used as incentives to settlement must be applied to all parties to the conflict. There can be no imbalance in the mediation, neither from a Western favoritism for petroleum nor due to divergent national interests. And applying the economics of settlement will be just as crucial to achieving peace as will navigating the complexities of the territorial elements.