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Professor Brenda Shaffer: â€œRussiaâ€™s position is a key to solve the Nagorno Karabakh conflict as the only country that has leverage to push Armeniaâ€ - INTERVIEW

29 April 2011 10:04 (UTC +04:00)

â€œUnfortunately basically Turkey really was looking for some sort of anything concession one-two district Armenia to pull out ofâ€

Baku. Victoria Dementieva â€“ APA. Interview with Professor of the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy and Haifa University, visiting scholar of Center for Strategic Studies under President of Azerbaijan Republic Brenda Shaffer

- How do you see prospects for solving the Nagorno Karabakh conflict for 2011, a year of intensive activity by the mediators?

- Unfortunately, this conflict is going on for 20 years. And every year we have hope for its resolution. But some conditions do point to some advancement that been made in recent weeks.

From the one side, the fact that borders is getting so escalated. This is a dangerous situation, I think everyone realizes is that this conflict is unfrozen and it can explode again. And there is more than sense of urgency, it is not something that theoretical- every week there are violent incidents on the front line. And this situation shows that it can really get out of control.

Secondly, the US and Russia currently have a very good relations. When there is a competition between US and Russia in this conflict it reflects onto the South Caucasus and one when the one leads the process the other one undermines the situation.

The other side is Turkey. Despite their declarations, Turkey is really interested in opening the border with Armenia for their own domestic political reasons. And I think that they probably open it. I think this border issue is very important lever on Armenia. There are really only 2 constrains on Armenia in terms of the conflict - one is the border with Turkey and the second is the threat of war. Basically the border is the only non-military means to encourage Armenia to make concessions. Unfortunately basically Turkey really was looking for some sort of anything concession one-two district Armenia to pull out of. Yet, despite the minimal demand, even this Yerevan was not willing to do. Moreover, it would be highly in Yerevanâ€™s interest to make a small concession of this nature and then reset the whole conflict process. But, even this, Yerevan was not able to do.

- You mentioned the ceasefire violations on the contact line between the troops. What is the possibility of war in Karabakh?

- I think both sides are not interested in real war. But sometimes violence escalates and the things get out from control and it is dangerous.

- You also mentioned the border issue between Turkey and Armenia, but the sides have not made any step forward yetâ€¦

- I think it will happen, because Armenia has very strong economic interest in this and Turkey has strong domestic political interest in it. I think Erdogan government really wants to do this. It is crucial to keep it linked though to significant process in the Karabakh conflict. But Armenian Diaspora has a very big influence on politicians in Armenia. The interests of Armenian American lobby is very different than in Armenia itself .The US Administration has shown that it really does not understand the priorities of the American Armenia lobby. They thought the Diaspora would be supportive of the Armenia-Turkey reconciliation and border opening. However, the many of the Diaspora organizations do not support this process and in now way link it to genocide recognition. That is the priority issue of the Armenian.

- Russia has increased its activity toward the settlement of Nagorno Karabakh conflict. How do you comment on it?

- It is important to separate diplomacy and actual interests. Holding of meetings does not necessarily mean that they are trying to solve the conflict. They might be trying to show that they are trying to solve it. But I think Russian position is a key to solve the Karabakh issue. The only country that has leverage to push Armenia is Russia. So if the Russia is really interested so it would mean there is very good prospects to solve the conflict. This is the crucial question. There are two ways of analysis. From one point of view, South Caucasus is a key region strategically. If you control the Caucasus, you can control all of landlocked Caspian region. So the Russia is very interested in it. But from another point of view, Russia has excellent relations with Turkey and does not need to keep forces on this border in Armenia to have a bulwark against Turkey, like in the past. In addition, Russia is not interested in escalation of violence in the South Caucasus, because it will impact the North Caucasus also.

- Recently Azerbaijani opposition attempted to hold rallies in Azerbaijan. Someone try to connect these attempts with the processes in the Middle East. Can Middle East latest developments impact on situation in the country?

- Of course, every person deserves democracy, freedom of expression and freedom to assembly. But, if you destroy an old building, it doesnâ€™t mean you have established a villa. It can simply mean you have destroyed something. Autocracy can be replaced by democracy, but it also can be replaced by theocracy or other repressive system. When you hear people calling for freedom and people of course is very exciting. But, I also fear the street. The street is not necessarily democratic will. The street can be for anything, not automatically is for freedom. And most political philosophers are always afraid of the street and tyranny of the masses. Often the street is racist, chavanist, and does not protect rights of women. So, we donâ€™t know if these revolutions will bring greater human freedom, but they will indeed bring dramatic change. The realities in the different Middle East countries really vary. And even in Middle East there are a huge diversity between countries. Some countries are secular with high level of education, moderate oil production. And there is the Gulf state which have very low level of human capital, low level of education rate, But totally economic dominates very religious society . It is hard to compare Syria with Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. Because they is completely different societies with different factors affecting the politics.
And we donâ€™t even know that is the majority of population think about it. For example in Egypt, fourteen million populated city Cairo had approximately 200 thousand people on Tahrir square. So we donâ€™t really even know that most people think about this change.

And the Middle East has very little influence on Azerbaijani policy. I think most people in Azerbaijan donâ€™t see anything connected to phenomena to Middle East. Azerbaijanâ€™s reality is so different than the Middle East. There are workersâ€™ strikes taking place in China in recent weeks that are much more similar to the Middle East response to price changes than to the sitatuion in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is one the places naturally welcoming minorities and minorities culture. Azerbaijan has high human capital and it is improving.

- Ho do you value the Azerbaijan-US relations?

- It is policy toward Azerbaijan and the Caucasus the US speaks in a very voices. It has such strong separation of powers and different agencies that often it contradicts each otherâ€™s goals. In the Congress, all politics, even foreign policy, is local, and depends on the local composition of a congressmanâ€™s district. In contrast, the Pentagon thinks about the long term strategic and security interests of US. They have State Department which put a big emphasis on democracy and human rights and other issues. So often occurs problems. So sometimes the US has conflicting policy all over the world not only in Azerbaijan. There are some issues in past couple years that impacted on Azerbaijan-US bilateral relations. One for instance is that Azerbaijan did not have US ambassador for great period of time. It should be noted that Washington did not send an Ambassador to Turkey or Syria either, due to the activity of domestic lobbies. These lobbies were powerful enough not only to present the sending of an ambassador to Baku, but to a central country to US foreign policyâ€”Turkey. It did not have it either because of lobby, what have been able to prevent ambassador even in Turkey â€“ a real central country for the US. It was not just Azerbaijan. But the fact that Obama administration let this happen shows how weak the administration is. Now Azerbaijan has very great US ambassador, which is very active and who knows Azerbaijan well. Hope, that a lot of damage in relations will be repaired with this very knowledgeable ambassador. But still the US administration is so constrained by this little Armenian lobby that can impact on sending ambassador here. So this signals its strength and it must be taken into account in strategic calculations.

Secondly, the Turkey -Armenia border issue and how US handed it. I think it handed it not skillfully and very recklessly. I donâ€™t think that in this case they were thinking regionally. I think the White House wanted so much to have this opportunity of bringing these peoples together and have this â€œphoto-opâ€ success story that it did not think out what it meant for the region.

Third, I think that Azerbaijani government knows Russia better than the most of us analysts do. I think if Russia is interested in solving the conflict this is crucial to its resolution. I think Azerbaijan policy is balancing between Russia and the United States and having the security cooperation with both countries. And it is right policy for small country in the Caucasus. And I think Azerbaijan will continue cooperation with US but without any public maneuvers at the very sensitive time in negotiations.