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| Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
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Armenian Aggression Against Azerbaijan
of the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan
(Brief Information)
1. A brief history of the conflict
2. Mediation efforts of the OSCE
3. High Level Planning Group
4. Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office on the conflict dealt with by the OSCE Minsk Conference
1. A brief history of the conflict
The present-day stage of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict dates back to the end of 1987, when the expulsion of Azerbaijanis from the Armenian SSR began. As a result of the repressions against the Azerbaijanis in Yerevan, Kafan, Masis, Gugark, Dilizhan, Sisian, Kirovakan and other settlements of Armenia, 220 people were killed and 1154 people were wounded(1). The refugees from Armenia began to arrive in Azerbaijan, whose number reached 243,682 people(2). On February 20, 1988 the Armenian representatives at the session of the Regional Soviet of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region adopted a decision "On requesting the Supreme Soviets of the Azerbaijan SSR and the Armenian SSR to transfer the NKAR from the Azerbaijan SSR to the Armenian SSR". On February 24, 1988 two Azerbaijanis were killed not far from the town of Askeran of the Nagorno-Karabakh Region of Azerbaijan. On February 28, 1988 the Sumgayit events were organized by the Armenian nationalists, one of the actors being Eduard Grigorian, an Armenian by nationality. Foreign correspondents came to Sumgayit beforehand to picture the events.
On December 1, 1989 the Supreme Soviet (Parliament) of the Armenian SSR adopted a decree "On re-unification of the Armenian SSR and Nagorno-Karabakh", which is still in force. These decisions of the NKAR and the Armenian SSR contradicted the USSR constitution, in accordance with which the borders of a Union Republic could not be altered without its consent and the borders between the Union Republics could be changed only with their mutual agreement with the eventual confirmation of the Union authorities.
In order to erase from the history the fact of residence of Azerbaijanis in the Armenian SSR, in accordance to the decision taken by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Armenian SSR on April 9, 1991 the names of 94 Azerbaijani settlements were changed.
All those events extremely aggravated the situation and in 1992-1993 resulted in the full-scale military activities, which had been initiated by Armenia. The armed forces of Armenia occupied the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. Especially tragic was the seizure of the town of Hojaly on the February 26, 1992, which resulted in brutal killing of 613 innocent civilians, including the elderly, women and children(3). In May 1992 Shusha, the Azerbaijani-populated administrative centre of the region within Nagorno-Karabakh, and Lachin, the region situated between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, were occupied. In 1993 the armed forces of Armenia captured another six regions of Azerbaijan around Nagorno-Karabakh: Kelbajar, Agdam, Jabrayil, Gubatly, Fizuli and Zangilan.
As a result of aggression against the Republic of Azerbaijan 20 percent of its territory, 890 towns and cities, villages and settlements were occupied, 904,214 people became refugees, 20,000 people were killed, 50,000 people were wounded or became invalids; according to initial calculations the caused damage constituted 60 billion USD.
2. Mediation efforts of the OSCE
Since February 1992 the process of the mediation efforts on the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict within the OSCE framework began. At the meeting of the OSCE Council of Ministers, held in Helsinki on the 24th of March 1992, a decision on convening a conference on Nagorno-Karabakh in Minsk under the auspices of the OSCE as a permanently acting negotiations forum aimed at the achievement of the peaceful solution of the crisis on the basis of the OSCE principles, commitments and provisions was adopted.
According to that decision, the participants of the Minsk Conference were: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belorussia, Turkey, Russia, USA, France, Germany, Italy, Czechoslovakia and Sweden. The Decision also noted that the elected and other representatives (representatives of the Azerbaijani and Armenian population) of Nagorno-Karabakh, as interested Parties, would be invited to the Minsk Conference by its Chairman after consultations with the states participating in the Conference.
Since 1992 the negotiations have been conducting within the framework of the Minsk Conference. The Chairmen of the Minsk Conference were:
- Italy in 1992-1993,
- Sweden in 1994,
- Russia, Finland in 1995-1996,
- Russia, USA, France - since 1997 up to the present.
Negotiations within the Minsk Group were held since 1992. According to the practice, the composition of the Minsk Group is being changed depending on the "Troika" of the OSCE. ("Troika" is made up by the former, present and future OSCE Chairman-in-Office).
Now Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, USA, France, Russia, Netherlands, Finland, Portugal, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Turkey are members of the Minsk Group.
At present the Co-Chairmen of the Minsk Group are: Russia (Yuri Merzlyakov), USA (Steven Mann), France (Henry Jakolin).
Following the occupation of Azerbaijani territories in 1993, the UN Security Council adopted four resolutions: 822 (April, 30), 853 (July, 29), 874 (October, 14) and 884 (November, 11). The above-mentioned resolutions reaffirmed the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Azerbaijan and of all other states in the region, the inviolability of the international borders and inadmissibility of the use of force as a means for the acquisition of territories. The resolutions demanded an immediate cessation of all hostile acts and an immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of occupying forces from all occupied territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and called for the restoration of the economic, transport and energy links in the region, the return of the refugees and displaced persons to the places of their permanent residence. The resolutions approved of the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group aimed at the peaceful settlement of the conflict and called for the search of the ways for a settlement of the conflict in the framework of the OSCE Minsk process.
On May 12, 1994 the cease-fire has been established.
On December 5-6, 1994 at the CSCE Summit in Budapest the Heads of State and Government of the OSCE participating states took a decision in accordance to which they established the institute of the Co-Chairmanship of the OSCE Minsk Conference for the coordination of all mediation efforts within the CSCE framework. The Budapest Summit tasked the Chairman-in-Office to conduct negotiations aimed at the conclusion of the political agreement on the cessation of the armed conflict, implementation of which will eliminate the consequences of the conflict and will permit convening of the Minsk Conference. The Summit also adopted a decision on the deployment of the CSCE multinational peacekeeping forces after the achievement of the agreement between the Parties on the cessation of the armed conflict, and the establishment of the High Level Planning Group (HLPG) aimed at the preparation of the peacekeeping operation.
The Lisbon Summit of the Heads of States and Governments of OSCE participants (since January 1, 1995 the CSCE was transformed into the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe), held on December 2-3, 1996, the Co-Chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group and the OSCE Chairman-in-Office recommended the principles, which should have been the basis for the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. But Armenia did not accept them and therefore it was the only one out of 54 OSCE participating states not to support them.
Then the OSCE Chairman-in-Office made a statement with the inclusion of those principles. They are as follows:
- territorial integrity of the Republic of Armenia and the Azerbaijan Republic;
- legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh defined in an agreement based on self-determination which confers on Nagorno-Karabakh the highest degree of self-rule within Azerbaijan;
- guaranteed security for Nagorno-Karabakh and its whole population, including mutual obligations to ensure compliance by all the Parties with the provisions of the settlement.
After the Lisbon Summit the institute of the triple Co-Chairmanship, including Russia, France and the USA, was established in 1997. Since April 1997 the negotiations were suspended and substituted by the visits of the Co-Chairmen to the region. On June 1, 1997 the Co-Chairmen presented the draft of a comprehensive agreement on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which consisted of the Agreement on the cessation of the armed conflict and the Agreement on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh. Despite the readiness of Azerbaijan to start constructive consultations on the essence of the mentioned documents, the Republic of Armenia categorically rejected the "package" approach.
On September 19-23, 1997, during their visit to the region, the Co-Chairmen presented new proposals based on the "stage-by-stage" approach to the settlement, according to which it was planned at the first stage to liberate 6 regions, to deploy the OSCE peacekeeping operation, to return the displaced persons to the liberated territories and to normalize main communications in the conflict zone. At the second stage the problems of Lachin and Shusha were to be solved and the main principles of the NK status were to be adopted. As a result the OSCE Minsk Conference ought to be convened. On October 10, 1997 the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia confirmed in their joint Statement in Strasbourg, that "the recent proposals of the Co-Chairmen were a hopeful basis for the resumption of negotiations within the framework of the Minsk Group".
But after the resignation of the President of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrossian in February of 1998 and with coming to power in March 1998 of Robert Kocharian, the next visit of the Co-Chairmen to the region took place, when Armenia officially withdrew the consent of the ex-president of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrossian to the proposals on the "stage-by-stage" settlement of the conflict.
On November 9, 1998, the Co-Chairmen put forward the proposals based on the concept of a "common state". According to this concept, Nagorno-Karabakh would have the status of a state and a territorial unit in the form of a republic, which, together with Azerbaijan would constitute the common state within internationally recognized borders of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan rejected those proposals, since they violated its sovereignty and contradicted the Lisbon principles. Since then no new proposals were made and the Minsk process practically reached a deadlock.
On November 18-19, 1999 the Final Document of the OSCE Istanbul Summit stressed that the Minsk Group was the most suitable framework for the settlement of the Karabakh problem, welcomed the dialogue of the two Presidents as giving an impetus to the Minsk process, and expressed hope for the resumption, as soon as possible, of the negotiations on the conflict settlement.
In order to give an additional impetus to the negotiations, since April 1999 direct talks between Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia on the achievement of conflict settlement began. However, due to Armenia's destructive position these meetings have not yet led to any agreement.
In the decisions of the OSCE Ministerial Council meetings, which were held on December 3-4, 2001 in Bucharest and on December 6-7, 2002 in Porto, the importance of continuing the peace dialogue was stated and a call to parties to continue the efforts on the settlement of the conflict on the basis of the norms and principles of international law was expressed.
During their visit to the region on March 2002 Co-Chairmen proposed to conduct negotiations at the level of special representatives of the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia. The proposal was accepted by the Presidents of both states. On March 13-15 and July 29-30, 2002 the two meetings of the special representatives of the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan took place in Prague. The ministers of foreign affairs of two countries met in Prague on March 16, 2004.
3. High Level Planning Group
In accordance with the Budapest Summit Decisions and on the basis of the Planning Group created in May of 1993, the High Level Planning Group (HLPG) was established on December 20, 1994. According to the decision of the Budapest Summit, the HLPG was tasked with the following:
1. to make recommendations for the Chairman-in-Office on developing as soon as possible a plan for the establishment, force structure requirements and operation of a multinational OSCE peacekeeping force in Nagorno Karabakh;
2. to make recommendations on the size and characteristics of the force, command and control, logistics, allocation of units and resources, rules of engagement and arrangements with contributing States.
The activity of HLPG is carried out through implementation of directives of the Chairman-in-Office. To that end the Group made a number of visits to the region and started to elaborate a detailed concept, which was reflected in a document "The Concept of establishment of the OSCE multinational peacekeeping force in the conflict area of Nagorno-Karabakh" presented to the Chairman-in-Office on July 14, 1995.
4. Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office on the conflict dealt with by the OSCE Minsk Conference
On August 28, 1995, the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, in agreement with the Parties to the conflict, established the institution of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office on the conflict dealt with by the OSCE Minsk Conference. Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk (Poland) occupies this post since January 1, 1997. The Personal Representative's mandate from the OSCE Chairman-in-Office is to:
- Represent the OSCE Chairman-in-Office in issues related to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, assist the CiO in achieving an agreement on the cessation of the armed conflict and in creating conditions for the deployment of an OSCE peace-keeping operation, in order to facilitate a lasting comprehensive political settlement of the conflict in all its aspects;
- report on all aspects of his activities to the CiO of the OSCE, report through the CiO to the Co-Chairmanship of the OSCE Minsk Conference and, as appropriate, to the Minsk Group, and receive instructions from the CiO;
- assist the Co-Chairmanship at its request;
- assist the High Level Planning Group in planning an OSCE peace-keeping operation in accordance with the Budapest Summit Decisions;
- assist the parties in implementing and developing confidence-building, humanitarian and other measures facilitating the peace process, in particular by encouraging direct contacts;
- co-operate, as appropriate, with representatives of the United Nations and other international organizations operating in the area of conflict.
According to the Memorandum on mutual understanding signed with the Government of Georgia, the Headquarters of the Personal Representative are situated in Tbilisi. The Personal Representative is assisted directly by his 5 field assistants, appointed by the OSCE Chairman-in-Office; they are present on a rotation basis in Baku, Yerevan and Khankendi.
In fulfilling their mandates, the Personal Representative and his Field Assistants are given necessary assistance to ensure that they have free access and movement in all areas relevant to carrying out their functions. mədrəsə
1. Rüfət Əmirov, Elan olunmayan müharibə. Ermənistan-Azərbaycan münaqişəsinin 1988-1995-ci illərdəki arayış, sənədlər və digər materialları. 2-ci cild. (Bakı: 1995), 2.
2. The Statistical Information about Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons in Azerbaijan, (Baku: 2000), 2.
3. The Statistical Information, 12.