British NGO executive director: Minsk Process must be open to all OSCE member states

Day.Az: You spoke recently at the Astana Forum of the NATO and Euro-Atlantic Security Partnership on the security threats in the Caucasus. Which are the main threats for security in the region as you see them?

Dennis Sammut: Many of yesterday's problems remain unsolved. The conflicts in Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia continue to provide the most serious challenge both to the countries of the region  as well as the international community, as the short war between Georgia and Russia last August well showed.

From that war another wave of refugees emerged, to join the hundreds of thousands from the conflicts of the previous two decades. These hundreds of thousands of refugees do not only constitute a grave humanitarian problem but are also a source of internal instability.

On the other hand new problems have started piling up. The tension in the relations between Russia and Georgia are a matter of concern. We are also seeing increased islamic radicalism in the North Caucasus and this has the potential to move to the South Caucasus too. There remains throughout the Caucasus region a democracy and human rights deficit; and despite some success in some areas, overall the region is suffering economic stagnation.

To these past and present problems must be added the future challenges facing the region, especially those in the areas of the environment, sustainable development and demographic changes. They will also impact directly the security of the region unless they are tackled through common action.

Unfortunately there is in the region near complete absence of working together to solve yesterday's unfinished business, deal with today's problems and plan and prepare for tomorrow's challenges. Not only is there no meaningful regional co-operation, but it is a chilling thought that of the six countries in and around the Caucasus: the three core countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, and the three outer countries, Russia, Turkey and Iran, only Iran has full diplomatic relations with all the other five.

The unresolved conflicts in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno Karabakh continue to be a major destabilising feature. The processes in place to manage and resolve the conflicts are not always satisfactory. The on going Geneva Process, co-chaired by the UN, the OSCE and the EU, to deal with the aftermath of the war in Georgia is a crisis management exercise and not a peace process. There is a danger as time passes and no progress is registered that the Geneva process can degenerate into a monthly opportunity for the sides to throw insults at each other. There is a need for this process to start moving forward and to deliver some results on the ground.


Q: How about the Nagorno Karbabakh peace process. What should the Minsk Group be doing to energise that process?   

A - The Minsk Process dealing with the Karabakh conflict, co-Chaired by the United States, Russia and France needs to start delivering. This process has made a lot of progress; it provides a regular opportunity for Armenia and Azerbaijan to meet and to discuss the conflict and its solution and there are also reports of some progress. However amongst the communities most effected by the conflict there is widespread disillusionment with the Minsk Process and there is a need for a new momentum. This will require more efforts, both on the part of the co-chair, as well as by the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan. When talking about the conflict the latter must say what they mean, and mean what they say. To give one example, the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan on 2nd November 2008 signed, together with the President of Russia, an important document on the way forward towards resolving the Karabakh conflict. One of the provisions of this document was that the sides for the first time recognised the importance of confidence building measures as a tool to help resolve the conflict. Yet for the last six months both Armenia and Azerbaijan have given a cool response to a number of military and civilian confidence building measures that were proposed to them by the Minsk Group co-chair and by NGOs working on second track initiatives.

Both the local actors and the international community must continue supporting both the Geneva process on Georgia and the Minsk Process on Karabakh until such a time as a consensus emerges for changing them. However around these processes there is an urgent need for a broader dialogue that would enable all the relevant players to sit together and start addressing the wider security concerns and other challenges facing the nations of the region.


Q: There are a number of valid ideas and suggestions to bring piece and stability in Caucasus, including Turkish proposal for a Caucasus Stability and Security Platform and the idea for a CSCE type security and co-operation arrangement in the region. What are the conditions that could make these initiatives real?

A: There are some overriding considerations that any new initiative should take into account, key principles that should underpin the approach:

    the process must be INCLUSIVE – all who need to be participating should be there. The idea that the Caucasus is somebody's back yard is an outdated cold war concept. The security concerns of the nations of the region are shared by others near and far who need to be part of this discussion. Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are sovereign states, not somebody's buffer zone.  The process must therefore be open to all the OSCE member states who want to be part of it, but also to others such as Iran, who because of their historical connections and geographic proximity also need to be part of it.
    The process must be HOLISTIC, covering all aspects that are relevant because many of the problems are inter-connected, including those in the military, economic, political and human dimension spheres.
    The process needs to be AMBITIOUS AND VISIONARY. The region requires us to think outside the box and come up with imaginative solutions for deeply rooted problems;
    the process must be CONSENSUAL. The Helsinki Final Act has such a strong moral force because it was agreed with the consensus of all European states large and small.


Q: Can such a framework be realistically created with a CSCE type mechanism?

A - Given the reality of the region the best approach to ensure an inclusive arrangement is to have a multi-tiered process. It can meet in “OSCE format”; it can also when appropriate meet in an extended format with the participation of other governmental and quasi governmental bodies. This will enable the participation of the de facto unrecognised or partly recognised entities of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno Karabakh, autonomously administered regions in the South Caucasus such as Adjara and Nakhichevan Republic and the Republics of the North Caucasus such as Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan etc. A third tier can be a consultative framework in which NGOs, think tanks and other parts of civil society participate and bring their inputs. I think this third tier is essential and reflects the age we live in. This is not the Brezhnev era but the age of Obama and there is a need for state centric initiatives to connect with the grass roots.


A: What can we expect from current Greek and next year’s Kazakhstan’s Presidencies of the OSCE in this regard?

This weekend the Greek Presidency of the OSCE is convening an informal meeting of the OSCE Foreign Ministers to start what is being described as the Corfu process – an inclusive and open ended renewed European Security dialogue. The debate on security in the Caucasus needs to be put at the heart of this discussion, and a parallel process on the lines I have outlined needs to develop. Kazakhstan next year takes over the Chairmanship of the OSCE. Kazakhstan is close enough to the Caucasus – without being part of it; has an interest in the region  but carries no baggage of history, and is therefore in my view well placed to play a positive role on this matter.