WHEN WAR WAS GIVEN A CHANCE – Arsen Kharatyan & Shujaat Ahmadzada

WHEN WAR WAS GIVEN A CHANCE

How the military crisis in Karabakh was perceived outside the region

As part of their joint ‘Line of Contact’ initiative, the Baku and Yerevan Press Clubs organised a discussion to explore how the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict has been perceived abroad. The conversation looked at views both within political circles and among the wider public and considered a number of questions. Does the infamous ‘Armenian lobby’ which is constantly talked about in Baku actually exist? Is it true that democracies support Armenia and autocracies support Azerbaijan? Does the religious factor play any role in the conflict? You can watch the whole conversation between Armenian conflict analyst Arsen Kharatyan and Azerbaijani political researcher Shujaat Ahmadzada in English and Russian on the AliqRu channel. It’s part of the ‘Building Bridges’ series. Here we present the speakers’ main theories with a short analysis by AliqRu correspondent Kirill Krivosheev who chaired the discussion.

The ‘Kosovo scenario’ – an unattainable Armenian dream?

It’s no secret that, in spite of the Madrid Principles and numerous reservations about the idea that the Karabakh conflict should be resolved “with regard for Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity”, many Armenians dreamt of a more radical option. They visualised a scenario where the Republic of Artsakh would be recognised by at least a few countries and would then be able to expand its international position, as was the case for Kosovo. Many in Yerevan were convinced that there were very serious grounds for this – namely, the threat to the security of the population of the region in the event of Baku gaining control of it.

However, the realisation of this dream was doomed from the outset, primarily due to the attitudes adopted by Western countries. It’s no coincidence that it was the Novosti Armenia news agency which put the idea to EU special representative for the South Caucasus, Peter Semneby, in 2007 and it’s no coincidence that he provided an unequivocal response: “The Kosovo process cannot become a precedent for the settlement of conflicts that exist in the post-Soviet space”.

According to Arsen Kharatyan, there is no point in trying to look for possible differences between the Kosovo and Karabakh conflicts in an effort to explain the very different attitudes towards them. He believes that the truth is simply that “big and powerful players” will always manipulate the law and pick and choose as they please.

For his part, Shujaat Ahmadzada recognised that the principle of territorial integrity now definitely enjoys greater support than the popular right to self-determination. He observed that in the past there have been periods when the opposite was true, such as during the wave of decolonisation in the 20th century.

“Territorial integrity is quite clear as one of the foundations of international law, enshrined in the UN Security Council and the UN Charter. You have the territory of the state which is recognised by the international community and it has to be protected, it cannot be violated. It’s pretty much as simple as two plus two equals four”, Ahmadzada argued.

He went on to say that the concept of the right to self-determination “was shaped after the Second World War from an understanding of it as a legal instrument that could be used for former colonies to obtain their independence”. However, in his view this is also the vulnerability of the principle: when all the major empires collapsed and countries joined the UN, membership of which is perceived as a kind of ‘certificate of compliance’, attitudes changed. “The concept of the popular right to self-determination has never provided an answer to the question of whether one part of a country can secede or not”. He gave the example of the position of the UN International Court of Justice on Kosovo when it “refused to answer the question of whether or not a declaration of independence means the secession of part of a country”.

This ambiguity has weakened the position of those who sought the right to self-determination for themselves.

Christian solidarity and the internationalisation of dictatorships

“The European Union is a club of Christian states and therefore they will always defend the position of the Armenians.” This is something we constantly hear from representatives of Azerbaijan where periods of close cooperation with the West repeatedly alternate with rejection and devaluation: “They’re not democracies at all, they’re the ultimate racists and Islamophobes!”

However, this was a point on which the two speakers were in complete agreement, noting that time and again external forces try to introduce a religious factor into the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict but that for the parties themselves religion doesn’t play a major role.

“This conflict is not about Russia versus the West, democracy versus autocracy, Islam versus Christianity”, said Shujaat Ahmadzada, “Even though if you look deeper you can always find aspects whereby these opposing positions are a real thing rather than fictional, I would still disagree [with this narrative]. This is an ethnic territorial conflict which dates back to the late Soviet period when both countries were part of the Soviet Union and they are fighting over a very complex understanding of this territory, combined with certain ethnic identities associated with that territory and also the legitimisation of that territory in the eyes of external observers.”

Arsen Kharatyan concurred: “If we’re talking about certain Christian groups [which have come to the defence of Armenia in the West], I fully agree that this is not a religious conflict and it has never been a religious conflict”, he said. “And if some groups have been trying to manipulate the situation by bringing the religious context into it, they were doing it in their own interests and not the interests of those they represented”. Both speakers expressed the hope that “in future, conversations about religion won’t distract people from seeking ways to resolve the conflict”.

The two experts considered that the differences in political structure in Armenia and Azerbaijan are a similarly insignificant factor. “I remember that we were discussing this in various Western forums, saying that democracy [in Armenia] is under threat. And it didn’t have much resonance, even among certain Western audiences”, said Arsen Kharatyan. “It’s evident that the world viewed Nagorny Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan and saw this, in a way, as proof that Azerbaijan had justification for the war. That was reflected in the attitudes in many different capitals”.

Shujaat Ahmadzada acknowledged this: “We haven’t seen tangible action by the West when it comes to support, let’s say, for the Armenian position over Nagorny Karabakh. That doesn’t necessarily mean that there was instead tangible action in support of Azerbaijan. But nevertheless I think it’s more likely that there was some ambiguity towards the region in general and the conflict in Nagorny Karabakh specifically. It was more a case of letting the two parties fight to see how the situation would change on the ground and then adjust to these changes afterwards.”

The first Karabakh war

All this sounds very much like the ‘Give war a chance’ logic which American analyst Edward Luttwak described in an article he wrote back in 1999. Luttwak started from the premise that, since the Cold War was over and there was no longer a threat of nuclear war (something many people believed in 1999), attempts by major players to intervene in foreign conflicts doesn’t help to resolve them and only delays their resolution. Stopping hostilities by means of international pressure is entirely possible, but the impact won’t be lasting and the resources that are freed up by the process will be used by both sides to rearm themselves. Since he wrote the article, many people have criticised Luttwak’s logic and rightly so, but perhaps in the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan it could really work and therefore be applied.

Setting a bad example

The gloomiest conclusion reached by the experts during their discussion was that the final act in the Karabakh conflict (this seems to be the most accurate interpretation – the Karabakh conflict is over but the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict is ongoing) could provide an example to other countries around the world. And it’s a bad example, unfortunately, as it encourages the use of brute force instead of compromise.

“The outcome of what happened in Nagorny Karabakh sets a precedent that a military solution is possible”, said Arsen Kharatyan. He believes that, first and foremost, this model will be tried in the Middle East and sees similarities, at least from the outside, between the exodus of the Armenians from Karabakh and the civilians in Gaza fleeing to the south of the enclave.

Shujaat Ahmadzada expanded on this: “In the 1990s we had the liberal assumption that right is might because of the US-based unipolar liberal order, based on international rules and norms, but in the last few decades especially, we are seeing the opposite reality. What we have now is that might is right and we’ve seen how this has been tested over and over, not only in the Caucasus, but also in the Middle East and in Eastern Europe. In the future it may be applied in hotspots in other parts of the world, such as the Balkans, the Sahel and the Far East”.

Ahmadzada described this as “illiberal conflict management methods” and it seems they are currently gaining a new lease of life. It’s a trend that is only likely to be reversed at the conclusion of the current period of global turbulence.

Translated from Russian by Heather Stacey. Read the original article here.

Watch the full broadcast below.