14 years of cease-fire in the Karabakh conflict zone

PanARMENIAN.Net - The document was signed by the Ministers of Defence of the Russian Federation and Armenia Pavel Grachev and Serge Sargsyan, as well as the army commander of the NKR Defence Samvel Babayan. Yet the Minister of Defence of Azerbaijan Mamedraffi Mamedov did not sign the document - he was urgently called to Baku. The document was signed a bit later in Baku. Regardless this, the long-term cease-fire was ensured in the zone. The cease-fire, firstly, was necessary for Azerbaijan, which in the result of impetuous offensives of the Army of the NKR Defence lost one position after another. Baku realized that if they do not stop the Armenians, they may lose the Gandzha Airport, which is the second important airport in the Caucasus, miss the control over many territories, and perhaps the war would reach Baku.
Heydar Aliyev would not let this happen. Aliyev was well aware of the fact that only Russia could stop the Armenian offensive. The fact that Azerbaijan has feared the offensive of the Armenian Army was obvious before and now. The Ambassador Vladimir Kazimirov, who was in 1992-96 the head of the Russian mediation mission, as well as the Nagorno-Karabakh representative of the RF President and also the participant and the co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, opened a little secret. In the article published in the newspaper "News Time" he wrote: "The stubborn battle of the spring 1994 at Terter, which is to the north of Stepanakert, was fraught with new troubles for Azerbaijan. The Armenian outlet to the River Kur would cut off the north-western prominence of Azerbaijan (this is exactly what happened in the southwest in 1993 with their outlet to the River Arax). Baku did not insist on its preconditions any more and was ready for a long-term cease-fire."

The initiator of the cease-fire was Russia, which wanted to spoil the relations with Azerbaijan. According to the Russian political scientist Alexander Mzareulov, the relations of Russia with Azerbaijan, the richest county of the Caucasus, turned out to be spoiled because of the events of Sumgait in 1988. "The national course of President Elchibey also had rather negative outcomes. The relations were damaged, but not completely spoiled. We did not take part in the conflict from the part of Armenia. We did not take up the function of establishing peace, this is OSCE's role and our troops have nothing to do here. Objectively speaking Azerbaijan is at the moment interested in good, but not allied relations with Russia (particularly after the calming down in Chechnya). This has its many reasons; they are the economical interests of the huge Azeri Diaspora in Russia (about 3 million), the joint "game" in the oil market, the problem of the Caspian Sea and others. Regardless the declarative urge to be integrated in NATO, today Azerbaijan for us is a relatively neutral country," he says. Mzareulov also mentioned that the Karabakh problem, of course, remains the biggest problem, but "the decrease of the tension also depends on successful progress in other regional conflicts and first of all in Georgia and also on whether the Russian authority as a big peacemaking power grows or falls in the region."

However for Armenia signing the Protocol was also a positive step. The Bishkek Protocol about the cease-fire between the Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan is the first document, where the Nagorno-Karabakh was mentioned as the official party of the conflict. The Protocol was signed by the Ministers of Defence of NKR, Azerbaijan and Armenia as a guarantor of the safety of Karabakh. "Thus on May 12, 1994 the Nagorno-Karabakh became full member involved in the negotiations. The peaceful agreement, if it is signed in the near future, must be signed by the Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan," says the political scientist Levon Melik-Shahnazaryan.

According to the Director of the Caucasian Institute of Mass Media, political scientist Alexander Iskandaryan, the Bishkek Protocol itself is not as important as the fact that it is 14 years that between the conflicting parties the cease-fire regime has been maintained. "The current stage of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict may be quailed as "peaceful". I do
not agree with those who call the negotiation stage "no war, no peace". If there are no shootings, it means that there is peace. The Bishkek Protocol was the document which fixed the situation between the Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan in 1994. And this situation continues till today," mentioned Iskandaryan.