Asia Times: Attack threatens chances for settlement in Caucasus



	October 29, 1999	atimes.com

Central Asia/Russia

Attack threatens chances for settlement in Caucasus
By Ara Tatevosian and Mark Grigorian*

YEREVAN, Armenia - Yesterday's brutal attack in the parliament building here that claimed the life of Armenia's prime minister, Vazgen Sarkisian, and as many as nine other government officials and lawmakers, comes just as it appeared that this country was about to settle its long and bloody dispute with neighboring Azerbaijan.

A meeting earlier this month between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan raised hopes that a peace agreement ending the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh could be reached by November 18, the date of a summit meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Istanbul.

Armenian President Robert Kocharian and Azerbaijan leader Heydar Aliev met on October 11 near the village of Sadarak on the border between their two countries. At the same time, their foreign ministers, Vartan Oskanian and Tofiq Zulfugarov, were holding talks in Luxembourg. Although both Kocharian and Aliev remained tight-lipped after their two-hour negotiations, local political analysts interpret the location of the meeting - that is, in the region instead of in Western Europe or the United States - as a positive sign which may herald a political breakthrough.

Both the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have attempted in vain to mediate a political resolution of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, which has dragged on for 11 years and killed an estimated 30,000 people.

In the wake of the meeting, the two presidents refused to give details of the substance of their talks, saying only that they had discussed the many elements of a peaceful settlement, but that there were no easy solutions.

The foreign ministers described their own talks as ''encouraging'', but were equally vague on details. ''We talked about a methodology for ending the conflict and discussed how to define the parameters for its resolution,'' Azerbaijan's Zulfugarov said. Oskanian, his Armenian counterpart, said that the talks ''centered on removing obstacles to the peace process''.

The foreign ministers' talks in Luxembourg followed earlier talks in New York on September 28 and 29, where both attended a session of the UN General Assembly and met with US Secretary of State Madeline Albright.

In advance of the OSCE's summit next month, the United States appears to have been increasing the pressure for a negotiated settlement. US Vice-President Al Gore recently wrote to the presidents of both countries, urging them to resolve their differences so that a peace accord could be signed in Istanbul.

But not everybody in Armenia appears prepared for compromise. Hrant Khachatrian of the nationalist Right and Accord parliamentary bloc said that he would only accept a peace agreement which either recognized Karabakh's full independence or its incorporation into Armenia. The bloc is the second largest in the parliament and is supported by Karabakh's hard-line former defense minister Samvel Babayan.

Opposition to a settlement also appears to be growing in Azerbaijan. According to the local news agency Assa-Irada, the chairman of the opposition Democratic Congress alliance, Isa Gambar, wrote an open letter to Turkish President Suleyman Demirel on the eve of his October 18 visit to Baku, complaining of pressure to agree on terms in Karabakh at the expense of the country's national interests.

However, sources indicated that the Turkish president was also pressing Azerbaijan to accept certain compromises to reach a agreement with Armenia. Local analysts believe that Turkey is pressuring Azerbaijan into an agreement in the hope that such a move will help it become a member of the Council of Europe.

Yesterday's bloody coup attempt in Armenia, however, puts negotiations between the two countries and a final solution to their longstanding dispute in jeopardy.

*Ara Tatevosian is director of Mediamax, an independent news agency. Mark Grigorian is regional correspondent for the London-based Institute for War & Peace Reporting, an independent non-profit organization supporting regional media.

((c) 1999 New York University. All Rights Reserved. The Global Beat Syndicate is a service of New York University's Center for War, Peace, and the News Media. For more information, check out http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat/syndicate/.)