What Karabakh can't do, but Kosovo can

Writing for Kosovo Online: Dragan Bisenic, journalist

The connection between Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh and Kosovo was established immediately after the beginning of the international recognition of Kosovo. Kosovo's declaration of independence on February 17, 2008, has sparked extensive debate about its possible implications for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, with some statements, including some from Armenia, suggesting that it completely changes the situation in the South Caucasus, and others including those from Azerbaijan and some Western governments, arguing that it is not applicable to territorial disputes there.

As soon as the recognition of Kosovo's independence began, former Armenian Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan said in an interview with Reuters that Kosovo's independence would strengthen the Armenian demand that the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh be recognized as a state. Sargsyan thus connected the statuses of Kosovo and Nagorno-Karabakh and concluded that Armenia was thus in a favorable position and that the recognition of Kosovo's independence could be welcomed by Armenia. Three decades later, things are moving in a direction completely opposite to the expectations of the former Armenian Prime Minister, and the new solution is being mediated by Washington and Brussels together with Moscow, with whom they are in total, even military conflict in all other issues.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a territory within Azerbaijan that was seized by Armenian forces in 1991 and held for the next 30 years. In 2020, Azerbaijan managed to recover most of the occupied territories with a military operation. That military action was supported and accepted by the majority of Western countries. Today, the situation regarding Nagorno-Karabakh is changing dramatically.

Two days ago, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced the recognition of Azerbaijan's sovereignty over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. Pashinyan said that Azerbaijan and Armenia could mutually recognize Armenia's territory of 29,800 square kilometers and Azerbaijan's territory of 86,600 square kilometers, which also included enclaves. Issues concerning the rights and security of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians should be discussed in the Baku-Stepanakert format, which is the Armenian center in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Pashinyan specified that this was a political position, while the legal side still needed to be discussed. He specified that there were two options - either that these enclaves remained as they were, or that they "de jure" returned to the sovereignty of the countries.

A breakthrough in the negotiations occurred at the beginning of May when the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia and Azerbaijan spent four days in Washington, where they talked together with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Talks began when Blinken, who initiated the summit, met the two ministers after speaking to them separately.

At the end of these talks, Blinken said that Yerevan and Baku are "close to an agreement". The negotiations were further taken over by the European Union, but Moscow was also included in them all the time. This is a unique and paradoxical situation where the three parties, Russia, the US, and the EU, which, by the way, have been in the fiercest indirect military conflict for 15 months in Ukraine, are at the same time partners at the diplomatic table on a completely different issue and these negotiations are progressing quite well.

It is also paradoxical that the negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan on the reintegration of Nagorno-Karabakh into the territory of Azerbaijan are led by the officials of the European Union and the US, at the same time that they, this time without any participation of Moscow, are mediating the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, only that in the latter the end goal is quite different. That goal, although not immediate, only because it is not realistic, is the recognition of Kosovo as an independent state that broke away from Serbia. This was announced countless times by US officials, representatives of individual EU member states, and mediators involved in the dialogue.

The highest officials of the European Union, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, President of the Council of the European Union Charles Michel, and representative for foreign policy Josep Borrell are involved in the Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations. The last such meeting was held in Brussels on May 14 when the territorial delimitation was discussed. A statement from the meeting said that the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia had reaffirmed their commitment to the 1991 Alma Ata Declaration.

"The leaders reaffirmed their respect for the territorial integrity of Armenia on 29.8 thousand square kilometers and Azerbaijan on 86.6 thousand square kilometers," Charles Michel said at a press conference.

Demarcation should be done based on maps of the General Staff of the USSR from 1975, which the Armenian Prime Minister says "can and should become the basis for work on demarcation". The troop withdrawal of both countries should also be done based on these maps. This was foreseen by the agreement reached in Prague on October 6, 2022, on the recognition of the mutual territorial integrity and demarcation of Armenia and Azerbaijan in accordance with the Alma Ata Declaration of 1991," he said.

Moscow's role, however, does not stop only with the use of military maps. Ilham Aliyev and Pashinyan will meet on May 25 in Moscow, while the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia met in Moscow on May 19. After the meeting, the head of the Russian diplomacy, Sergey Lavrov, said that Armenia and Azerbaijan had managed to reach a common understanding on the common vision of the peace agreement.

"The parties have started working on it and now it is being actively discussed, including the participation of other mediators. Armenian and Azerbaijani ministers traveled to Washington, and the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan were in Brussels a week ago. Working on a peace agreement is, of course, fundamental," Lavrov said.

According to his words, the representatives of the countries had a "complex" discussion about the situation. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia, Ararat Mirzoyan, stated that the country was ready for peace negotiations on the South Caucasus. Mirzoyan added that the Lachin Corridor should remain under Russian control.
The possibility of signing a peace agreement was even announced for the upcoming meeting with Putin, although the Armenian Prime Minister is skeptical about it. So, the outcome is this -the US and the EU lead the negotiations, and the permission for the peace agreement and the seals on it are provided by Moscow.

Of course, all of this inevitably leads to the question of how something is possible in Azerbaijan, and the same thing is not possible in Serbia, that is, how come the completely opposite solution is sought and expected for Serbia? Until a clear and suitable answer is found to this question, it seems that it will not be possible to reach a compromise solution in the Balkans that would contribute to the stability of the region and this part of Europe.