One Conflict that Can Be Solved

The Nagorono-Karabagh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan is an example of a conflict where preventative diplomacy by the United States could pay dividends.

When the Bush administration entered office, its representatives vociferously  declared that Washington would refrain from initiating peace negotiations in the Middle East and said that it was up to the belligerent sides to lead the process. Only when the situation literally blew up last year did Washington renew its activism in the peace-making business, though its efforts have produced few concrete results so far.

If the peace process had been activated before the renewal of violence, however, the chances of success would have been higher. Complicating their job more, Washington and the international system in general have tended to reward groups that use violence to call attention to their plight, ignoring those who trust the system.

Fortunately, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia        presents an opportunity for proactive diplomatic efforts that could lead to a resolution of a lingering conflict before it causes further trouble. Specifically, peace over Nagorno-Karabakh can lift doubts about the successful flow of energy  resources from the Caspian region.

In the last decade, Baku and Yerevan have come extremely close on three occasions to concluding a peace agreement, and a concept of a workable solution for settling the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict exists in the minds of the two leaders, President Geidar Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Armenia's President Robert Kocharian. This is one conflict where a resolution is almost within reach, and serious high-level attention from the West could contribute to its resolution.

 Unfortunately, the opportunity could be missed. The media, like the international system, pay attention mostly to "hot" conflicts, addressing their underlying  issues only once the rival sides are engaged in hostilities, or when one of the sides is engaging in terrorism or other destabilizing actions. At the moment, international attention is focused on the Middle East and on combating   international terrorism more generally. Meanwhile, conflicts that are currently not           inflamed are often ignored. Even Afghanistan only receives cursory attention,             despite the fact that immense action is necessary to prevent it from becoming              even more of a mess.

The dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan began in the late 1980s, before to the breakup of the Soviet Union, as these two republics vied for control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Nagorno-Karabakh was situated within the legal boundaries of Azerbaijan, but the majority of the population was ethnic Armenian, and a sizeable ethnic Azerbaijani community lived in Nagorno-Karabakh as well.

 With the Soviet collapse, war erupted between Yerevan and Baku over Nagorno-Karabakh. By the time the two countries agreed on a cease-fire in 1994, the war had resulted in the deaths of more than 30,000 people and created large communities of refugees on both sides of the conflict-some 300,000 Armenians and 800,000 Azerbaijanis. Twenty percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including large areas of land outside of Nagorno-Karabakh, was conquered by Armenia.

Armenia has successfully resettled a majority of the Armenian refugees, a large        number in the disputed district of Nagorno-Karabakh itself. Yet 800,000 Azerbaijani refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh and the adjacent occupied districts still wait for a solution to their plight. They are not engaging in terrorism to call world attention to their situation or to coerce Yerevan into compromise. They are waiting patiently, and they maintain a belief that the world community will take action and address their situation.

However, the international system does not tend to reward patience with its          attention. Blow up enough buses and you may get a state, but groups of  displaced individuals that do not use violence to call attention to their claims often remain invisible. Yet by ignoring the refugee communities that do not engage in terror, may push conflict resolution even further away, as the victims of the terror lose trust in their "rivals" and their desire to reach a compromise with them.

There is still hope for resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict without this sad outcome, however. In the last two years, Moscow and Washington have cooperated in efforts to resolve this struggle, and that cooperation has expanded in recent months, with efforts focused within the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Over the past  decade, the Minsk Group has formally taken the lead in the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process, sponsoring initiatives and meetings.

As helpful as it is, the OSCE framework has served basically as a makeshift mechanism, since the organization lacks sufficient institutions or a legal mandate to implement or prod a peace process. The real breakthroughs have always been achieved directly by Baku and Yerevan. Indeed, the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process is fortunate in that the leaders of the two states meet face-to-face on a regular basis and these  meetings are considered completely legitimate and non-dramatic events in both countries.

In an important sense, then, this is a conflict whose resolution is within reach of the affected parties themselves. The two sides should not see themselves as married to the OSCE-Minsk process nor should they wait  for initiatives to come from this group. They can and should take responsibility for the process themselves. As they move forward, there should be a role for four parties in the negotiation process: Yerevan, Baku, Karabakh Armenians, and Karabahk Azerbaijanis.

Learning a lesson from the failed Oslo Process in the Middle East, negotiators should tackle the most serious issues in Nagorno-Karabakh first. If the most important issues are left for the end of the process, extremists on both sides will seize the opportunity to derail the process, as has been the case in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For any settlement to succeed, however, the major powers in the region -- Russia, Turkey, Iran, the U.S. and the EU -- need to see the settlement as promoting their interests in the region, or at least not damaging them significantly. Otherwise, some will be tempted to undermine the peace to advance their own aims. In its initial stages, this conflict suffered from Russian actions aimed at pitting the two sides against each other in order to increase dependence on Moscow. Now though, Russia's President Vladimir Putin has come to see the dangers that can emanate from this policy, and its potential projection onto Chechnya and other  regions in Russia.

Peace over Nagorno-Karabakh offers is not only a matter of settling a dispute that has had tragic consequences for local people, as significant as that goal is. It would contribute to stability in a region if strategic importance to the wider world. In the next several years, billions of barrels of Caspian oil from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan will begin flowing to international markets. In recent weeks, important milestones have passed that have turned the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan east-west oil pipeline into a reality -- with the conclusion of the feasibility studies, the signing of additional legal frameworks and the declaration of intent to begin construction early next year. Consequently, large numbers of associated contracts will flood the region, creating economic opportunity for many, including the Armenians -- if peace is achieved.

This is only one of many reasons why international community must strive to address conflicts even when they are not in the headlines. Peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia is attainable. Diplomatic efforts should be invested now to attain that peace, before the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh heats up once again.