Kazakhstan can help in the Azerbaijan-Armenia negotiations over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement, but only its sides can resolve the conflict, Andrey Chebotarev, director of the Alternative research center in Kazakhstan, told Trend April 29.
While delivering speech at his inauguration, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said Kazakhstan will strengthen its efforts for the peaceful settlement of regional conflicts in the Islamic world and the post-Soviet area.
Chebotarev said that during its activity as a sovereign country, Kazakhstan accumulated great experience in different peacemaking processes. In particular, it was involved in the settlement of the conflict in Tajikistan. Being a chairing country in the OSCE in 2010, it rather actively acted for the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. There was an attempt to offer itself as a mediator in resolving the crisis around Ukraine.
The expert said that Kazakhstan also has ready platforms that can be used to mediate in the talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
“For example, the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia, initiated by Kazakhstan, can be used for this purpose,” he said. “The Conference includes the CIS countries that have supported this initiative.”
“Kazakhstan can become a successful mediator in resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, as Azerbaijan and Armenia are inclined to trust it more, given a general mental-cultural factor and historical ties,” he said.
Moreover, Kazakhstan has no special interests in the region as for example Russia has in Armenia, Chebotarev added.
Like any other country, Kazakhstan will not be able to render full assistance in the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, according to the expert. He recalled that the Russian president sat at the table of negotiations with Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents in 2014 and tried to help in the conflict’s settlement, but his efforts were not successful.
He added that only the two sides themselves could resolve this problem. “Not everything depends on a third party.”
The expert added that Azerbaijan and Armenia’s consent for Kazakhstan’s mediation in the negotiations is also very important. Armenia can be against this, since Kazakhstan leans towards Azerbaijan taking into account the common Turkic factor, he said. The expert added that moreover, Armenia had some disagreements with Kazakhstan during its accession to the Eurasian Economic Union.
Taking into account that the bilateral economic and political relations between Kazakhstan and Armenia are not at a high level, Kazakhstan will unlikely be able to somehow influence Armenia in the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, the expert concluded.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.
The two countries signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Russia, France and the US are currently holding peace negotiations.
Armenia has not yet implemented the UN Security Council’s four resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions.
/Trend/
