This article by Dr. Laurence Broers (Programme Associate) and Siegfried Woeber (Caucasus Projects Manager) at Conciliation Resources was originally published in Russian in the May 2015 issue of the journal Analyticon.
Perhaps few peace proposals offering ways out of decades-long deadlock have as few friends as the "Madrid Principles". Across the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, in Baku, Stepanakert and Yerevan, there is a negative consensus among civil society activists, analysts and the informed public alike. The lack of enthusiasm vis-à-vis the Madrid Principles is ironic, because they are by far the most 'durable' of the peace proposals generated by the OSCE Minsk Group, the body mandated to mediate between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Nagorny Karabakh conflict. They have lain on the negotiating table for some 10 years. This contrasts with the life-spans of previous proposals, which can be counted in months. The longevity of the Madrid Principles assumes even more importance in the context of the severely worsening situation around the Line of Contact (LOC) over the last 18 months or so. What explains the longevity of the Madrid Principles? Why is this peace proposal still with us, neither accepted nor rejected, when its predecessors were taken off the negotiation table in fairly rapid succession?
Three answers might be put forward here. The first is that the Madrid Principles offer some qualitative advantage in the way that they address the concerns and interests of the conflicting parties. For some observers the virtue of the Madrid Principles is that they overcome the fundamental dichotomy between package and step-by-step approaches that shaped early approaches to resolving the Karabakh conflict in the late 1990s. Through the innovations of interim status and a popular vote on final status, they ostensibly allow for normalisation to precede an already-agreed final status determination process, thereby incorporating elements of both the package and step-by-step approaches. But it seems that if in theory the Madrid Principles represent an attempt to bridge differences in the preferred methodologies of the sides, this is not seen in terms of two conflicting parties meeting each other halfway, but in zero-sum terms as dilution of preferred solutions. Moreover, even if current and former senior policymakers and negotiators in Yerevan and Baku acknowledge some virtue in the Madrid Principles, this case has not been made with wider publics. Crucially, it has not been made in Nagorny Karabakh (NK) either, where the Madrid Principles are widely viewed with hostility.
A second answer is that the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia themselves find much that they can agree on in the Madrid Principles. The Principles have already passed through multiple iterations of negotiations, they have been broken down, dissected, and concessions and compromises on many issues theoretically agreed. No-one forces the presidents to retain this proposal. There appears to be implicit agreement on many of the basics: Armenian withdrawals from most of the territories around the former NKAO, rights of return or compensation for refugees and internally displaced communities, a new security package involving an international presence of some kind, and special arrangements guaranteeing secure access along key routes, such as the Lachin road connecting Armenia and NK. Yet it seems that when it comes to the kernel of the conflict, the status of NK, the specification of the details remains elusive. The above-mentioned innovations of the Madrid Principles - an interim status for NK, and the terms of a new plebiscite or popular vote to determine its final status - remain vague.
A third explanation of the longevity of the Madrid Principles is that their significance as a document addressing the content of a peace agreement has been overtaken by their utility as a document legitimating a fragile peace process. A wide range of observers agree that the Karabakh conflict, and in particular the Minsk Group, constitute one small theatre of cooperation against a broader canvas of polarisation, confrontation and rivalry across the former Soviet space. It is in no-one's interests to see the final demise of the Minsk Group. Russian and Western powers continue to see value in the channel of communication, information exchange and cooperation that the Minsk Process represents. President Vladimir Putin has also been able to derive individual credit and affirmation from a mediation role, convening the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents to meet when LOC confrontation threatens to spin out of control - as he did in 2014 at Sochi. For the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents, the Minsk Process is one domain where their legitimacy and the nature of their rule is rarely questioned. They enjoy the benefits of a serious mediation process, featuring three members of the United Nations Security Council and three major world powers, whose ear Armenia and Azerbaijan are able to access through the Minsk Group.
In a fluid and risk-laden regional environment, the Minsk Group has become a reliable constant, and all actors find value in its continuation. Yet this functionality might have little to do - any more - with the actual agenda of constructing a peace agreement. At the same time as the Madrid Principles continue to linger on the negotiating table, power-holders in Armenia and Azerbaijan tolerate or actively support policies that work directly against the potential for the Madrid Principles to one day be successfully implemented. Whether it is militarisation, LOC tensions or the embedding of a de-facto administration in expansive borders in Nagorny Karabakh, the passage of time is being marked in ever more solid obstacles to the vision of peace contained in the Madrid Principles.
As one participant in a meeting discussing the Madrid Principles organised by London-based NGO Conciliation Resources observed, "we are on the verge of the point where the situation has so changed, so evolved, that the language and categories we are using are outmoded and no longer adequate to describe the realities we face." In this context the first two explanations as to the longevity of the Madrid Principles - their qualitative addressing of problems on the ground and implicit agreement on a critical mass of issues - recede in significance. As facts on the ground change, so do interests, incentives and constraints. What might be left, at some point in the near future, is the hollow form of a peace process bereft of relevant substance.
Source: This article was written by Dr. Laurence Broers (Programme Associate) and Siegfried Woeber (Caucasus Projects Manager) at Conciliation Resources, and was originally published in Russian in the May 2015 issue of the journal Analyticon. It is published for the first time in English on commonspace.eu. The authors prepared this article as part of Conciliation Resources'' work within the framework of the EU-funded 'European Partnership for the Peaceful Settlement of the Conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh (EPNK)'. The views presented here cannot be taken to reflect the views of the European Union.
Photo: The current co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Process, representing France, Russia and the United States. (Picture courtesy of Ambassador James Warlick)
As part of the EU-funded "European Partnership for a Peaceful Resolution of the Nagorno Karabakh Conflict (EPNK)", Conciliation Resources organised a number of expert meetings in its "Karabakh Contact Group" format to discuss alternative ideas concerning displacement, status, access and security/Lachin corridor, and international peacekeeping and security provision. In roundtables in the region in early 2015, local civil society experts were invited to elaborate their views on the Madrid Principles and the current status of the peace process.
