It is noteworthy that the suggestion to delegate Turkish military men for the participation in the peacemaking mission was announced last week by the Turkish ambassador in Azerbaijan Turan Moali. He said that «Ankara, guided by the mandate of international peacemaking forces, can delegate forces to Nagorno-Karabakh.» Commenting on the strange initiative, during the meeting with the OSCE chairman Carl De Gucht the Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan said that the candidature of Turkey as a peacemaker country is not acceptable. This position of Yerevan is quite clear for the mediators who would never even think of appointing Turks as peacemakers. The co-chairmen of the Minsk group of OSCE understand that the burden of past and the biased position of Ankara in the Karabakh problem deprive Turkey of the moral right to take part in such a mission. Yet before his trip to South Caucasian countries, Carl De Gucht announced in Brussels that all the parties of the conflict would have the right of veto on the candidature of countries pretending to the role of peacemakers. «It will not be difficult for OSCE to find countries which will be ready to undertake peacemaking mission in the Karabakh conflict zone. But it is up to conflict parties to decide what kind of forces will be deployed in the region», he said. Thus, the attempts of Turks to demonstrate anger cannot seem convincing for anyone.
The issue of assigning international peacemakers in the region becomes more and more topical. Some interesting details about the negotiations on the subject were revealed yesterday by the Azeri Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov. He says that according to the variant currently discussed, representatives of OSCE Minsk group member states will not be included in the staff of peacemakers. It is quite obvious that this initiative is aimed at neutralizing Russia. The idea, announced by Mamedyarov, can fully deserve the support of Washington. Exclusion of co-chairman countries from the game is favorable for the United States. For Washington it will already be quite enough to have for example representatives of Great Britain in the staff of peacemakers. In that case the interests of America will be protected. As for Russians, they have no one to rely on, perhaps besides Belorussian military men. But in this respect, Minsk has neither the necessary political reputation nor the experience in peacemaking. Meanwhile, Russians will hardly refuse from the chance to strengthen their military presence in the region and will hardly agree to satisfy with only the coordination of the conflict settlement process. It is worth reminding that during his visit in Yerevan, the Russian Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov made it clear that Moscow intends to take part in the peacemaking mission if it comes down to that.
The word “if” is quite in its place here, because actually it is early to talk about the staff of peacemaking forces. If peace agreement is really signed, it will be necessary first of all to decide on the mandate of peacemakers. Acting OSCE chairman Carl De Gucht recently said that it is still unclear whether the peacemakers will be military people or just observers carrying out monitoring. This depends on the will of conflict parties. But the engagement of peacemaking forces will probably be conditioned by one very important condition observance of which by the mediators will be demanded both by Yerevan and Baku. According to Elmar Mamedyarov’s statement which he recently made, the deploy of peacemakers should be preceded by rehabilitation measures in the region. Mamedyarov’s statement can be regarded as wish to have guarantees that the West will give money for post-conflict rehabilitation. We will not let the forces in, until you give money This is perhaps the only position where Yerevan and Baku are absolutely solidary.
