YEREVAN. - The term that describes best the prospects of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue in 2014 might be that of cautious pessimism, political analyst Gunter Walzenbach told Armenian News–NEWS.am.
A senior lecturer at the University of the West of England, Bristol, Gunter Walzenbach noted that the events around the Vilnius summit and the continuing uncertainty around the future shape of the Eastern Partnership will have raised awareness among EU decision makers not just for the security concerns of individual countries, but also for the strategic foreign policy orientations of Russia.
“In this context further progress or deterioration of EU-Russia relations will also have repercussions for “frozen conflicts” such as the one in Nagorno-Karabakh. While measures for successful conflict resolution were also part of the drafting and negotiation process of the new association agreements, it remains doubtful whether the EU foreign policy process can now produce an approach towards conflict resolution that is more coherent and consistent than previous efforts”, he said.
Walzenbach added that the instruments in the hand of the newly established European External Action Service (EEAS) are limited and the EU motto of ‘more for more’ is no convincing replacement for stronger forms of economic and political conditionality.
However, from the expert’s point of view, this is not to say that previous efforts and EU involvement in the Nagorno-Karabakh issue did not proceed on the right track.
“In principle, the EU’s soft power image, concrete action in terms of civil society engagement on both sides and a strengthened role for the Union’s Special Representative can surely help in the long run to build credibility as well as the necessary expertise to become the neutral mediator and honest broker so much needed in the Southern Caucasus”, Gunter Walzenbach emphasized. Yet, formally, he noted, all the main responsibility still rests with the OSCE Minsk Group, and disagreement will continue as to whether France is an adequate proxy for the EU as a whole within this forum.
The expert believes that whatever type of specific solution might eventually be championed by the negotiating parties in the case of Nagorno-Karabakh, it will have profound repercussion for other ‘frozen’ conflicts in the same or related regional settings.
“Yet a combined or integrated approach in relation to conflict resolution in the cases of South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Transnistria, is of an order to tall for current EU diplomacy. In this constellation, perhaps, more has to be expected from the political leadership of both Azerbaijan and Armenia. Further meetings at presidential level have been confirmed and sound promising, to say the least”, he noted, adding that, in part, though, these are a reflection of the degree of relative stability both leaders enjoy in their respective political system.
While there are no convincing arguments to be found that recurrent skirmishes and power gestures turn into a ‘hot conflict’, according to Gunter Walzenbach, genuine conflict resolution seems equally remote.
“In the current state of affairs negotiation teams, diplomats and decision-makers may have not much choice but look out for new windows of opportunities coming along with broader changes in Russia’s relations with the West” emphasized the expert.
