These last months the developments of the Karabakh conflict negotiations are more active. But this is strange and there is no clear information, because all the time people are talking about signing an agreement and stationing international peacemaking powers in the region, as well as about serious developments in the conflict negotiations process and the chances and possibilities of the problem solution in 2006, but there is no clear information yet. But still we can say that anyway some arrangements have been made. This arrangement consists in the following: the Armenian powers are to be taken out of the occupied five (or six) regions, international peacemaking powers are to be placed there, refugees are to return and later in five or in ten years a referendum is to be organized to define the status of Karabakh, and both Armenia and Azerbaijan have to agree with any outcome of the referendum.
The most interesting thing is the fact that the Karabakh conflict is not discussed in Armenia seriously. Mostly people discuss issues related to the possible influence of those suggestions on our internal political environment. The authorities are interested in prolonging the dates of making the agreement (not depending on the contents of the agreement), and the oppositional powers are interested in using the chance of the agreement to start a revolution.
As a result of these appearances a lot of false stereotypes come out, which are repeated so often that these stereotypes seem to be real. For instance: “Illegal authorities can never make compromises and successful steps”. Why? But what if the illegal authorities sign an agreement according to which Karabakh and the surrounding territories are an independent state? Do you think that in this case people will go out to streets to claim that the illegal authorities don’t have a right to define the status of Karbakh? On the other hand do you think that people will agree with an agreement according to which Karabakh is given to Azerbaijan only because of the fact that such an agreement is signed by legal authorities? In a word it doesn’t depend on whether the authorities are illegal or not, the most important thing is whether they can reach a good agreement for us or not, in other words the most important thing is not the legitimacy of the authorities, but the contents of the agreement they are going to sign. In fact, authoritarian powers (that don’t have any problems with their legitimacy) can take more serious steps, because in case there is any need they can make pressure and make people come down by using barbed wires and water spraying facilities.
Now, a little about the proposed conflict solution alternative.
What happened? The war in Karabakh brought to concrete results: Armenia won the war. The 11 years after the ceasefire agreement shows that these kinds of results don’t give a chance to reach final peace. Accordingly the international community offers two ways: either they have to continue making pressure (there are no results yet in connection with this) or change the results of the war (but this is possible only in case of starting a new war). But it is difficult to say which one of these two ways the international community advocates. Besides that the suggestions to locate international troops in the region bring up numerous questions. And the most important question is why we need these international military forces.
At first this question may seem strange, but it is not so. You can come to this conclusion if you pay attention to the fact that it has already been 11 years that the parties keep peace on the borders, and even more, without any international military forces. There is only one reason: now there is balance between the conflicting parties. At the same time people understand that in case of taking Armenian powers out of these regions there will be a misbalance of powers in the region, which may cause a war again: this is the reason why the international powers will be stationed in the region. On the other hand no one is sure whether those forces will be able to prevent the possible war or not later. If a new war starts, Azerbaijan will have privileges, because it is an absurd thing to say that Armenian powers will attack again right after leaving those territories.
In other words: if there is balance of powers in the region there will be peace, but if there isn’t balance of powers even the international military forces can’t do anything to save the situation.
I think first of all political powers of Armenia should discuss this issue beforehand. At the same time they should leave the internal political problems aside for some time and focus on these issues. The problem is really very serious.