Interviews

Negotiations with the Devil

This is what Dennis Sammut, Director of LINKS is ready to conduct in order to facilitate peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict

"Echo" (Russian language Azerbaijani newspaper)

No 28 (766), 13 February 2004, page 2

(Translation from Russian) 

According to the Regnum News Agency, on 12 February the delegation of British and American NGOs visiting Karabakh met with media representatives of the self-proclaimed republic. The head of the delegation Mr. Stephen Nash, representing LINKS said that the project on Nagorno-Karabakh aims to improve the general atmosphere in the region. This, according to Mr. Nash, will help to reach certain political decisions. "All sides in the conflict, including Nagorno-Karabakh, should be equally involved in the process of settlement," Mr Nash told journalists. "Unresolved conflicts have no winners and I hope our contacts will help to find solutions." The guests stressed their readiness to facilitate negotiations within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group. The delegation also met with the "representatives of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic's senior leadership", visited Shusha and met with the refugees from Azerbaijan residing there. Today they will leave Khankendi.

Concurrent with the above visit to Nagorny Karabakh, Mr Dennis Sammut, head of the British NGO LINKS is visiting Baku. For several years LINKS has been facilitating contacts between the parliamentarians from Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia. In his interview to "Echo" Mr. Sammut spoke about the work carried out by LINKS.

It is said that you came to Azerbaijan to collect information on how the public looks at the ways of resolving the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh and prepare a report. What organisation are you preparing the report for?

LINKS has been involved in expert evaluation of the situation in the South Caucasus for several years, but we have been particularly active over the recent period, especially with respect to the Karabakh conflict. Today there are new ideas and new proposals. At the moment we seek to communicate with the well-known representatives of the Azerbaijani public, academics, etc. We are interested to know how they see the ways to resolve the conflict. We think it is useful to build a dialogue between groups and organisations representing the interests of the Azerbaijani and Armenia communities in Nagorno-Karabakh. In Azerbaijan I have already discussed these issues with the leadership of the Organisation for Liberation of Karabakh and the "Karabakh Home". My colleague Stephen Nash is now visiting Nagorno-Karabakh and meeting with representatives of the Armenian community. We hope we will be able to achieve what we have planned. Besides, for three years now LINKS has been involved in facilitating meetings of parliamentarians of the South Caucasus. At present, this parliamentary initiative is chaired by the Deputy Speaker of the Georgian Parliament. On 13 February he is arriving in Baku to meet Mr. Murtuz Aleskerov. One of the purposes why I came here this time is to prepare his visit.

How would you explain LINKS's interest to the problem of Nagorno-Karabakh?

LINKS was established with a view to facilitating peaceful settlement of conflicts, including the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. We facilitate negotiations between conflicting communities in the post-soviet states. The conflicts emerged at a certain period in time, and they were the result of confrontation between certain political groupings. Our NGO has been established to evaluate and analyse how to overcome the consequences of these conflicts today. The conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh is not the only focus of our work. We are interested in all processes unfolding in the Caucasus region, including all conflicts present here. The emphasis on the problem of Karabakh stems from the fact that this conflict is the most difficult problem for the whole region. Settlement of this conflict would facilitate the integration of the South Caucasus states in the European Union.

 Official Baku is not happy about visits to Nagorno-Karabakh bypassing Azerbaijan made by representatives of foreign states. It is considered that all those who wish to meet Armenians from Karabakh can do so in Yerevan, however, they have no right to enter Nagorno-Karabakh without co-ordinating such visits with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan. If your colleague is now visiting Khankendi, don’t you think you may hear expressions of protest when you meet the Chairman of the Azerbaijani parliament? The attitude of the Azerbaijani authorities to LINKS may change. . .

I can't agree with what you are saying. Firstly, at all meetings I had both with the state bodies, and non-governmental organisations I promised that our NGO would do all it can to contribute to the peaceful settlement of the conflict. And to achieve that, I am ready to go not only to Karabakh, but also to hell and meet the devil there. LINKS has worked towards settlement of virtually all conflicts in the territory of the former Soviet Union. I myself visited five hot spots, but before each of the visits we knew concretely what we were going to do in those territories and whom we were going to meet, which means that we always plan in advance and our work proceeds within a certain limits. One of the rules we follow in our work is that we never apply for entry visas to separatist entities. Secondly, we never make any statements that would imply that we support separatists and their actions. We maintain contacts with the state formations existing both de facto and de jure, and we equally inform both on our goals and the results of our work. The main goal of all our endeavors is to facilitate the return to their places of habitual residence of all people displaced as a result of separatist actions. This is the main focus for us.  Why am I against the negative attitude to such visits? Today both the OSCE Minsk Group and the European Commission are working to formulate their proposals that would lead to conflict resolution. I think in such circumstances LINKS cannot stay aloof of the processes and be quietly sleeping in London. We have to be active, and we must work. I believe, our work is very well understood and appreciated by the government and the parliament of Azerbaijan. Our co-operation will contribute to the process of settlement.

At what stage is your work now?

My meetings in Baku and Mr. Nash's meetings in Karabakh show that we are half-way through in our work.  When I came to Baku, it was interesting for me to meet those people whom I only knew from their pictures in newspapers and to hear what they say.  Some of them were very radical and I wanted to hear their views. I concluded that all my interlocutors have good intentions. All of them are not satisfied with the present situation round Nagorno-Karabakh and want it changed. Our positions should come closer, so that we could move forward together. My programme in Baku is coming to its end, and in three weeks time I will come here again to continue my meetings with the same people. We will think again how to co-ordinate our activities and bring our positions closer. After I finish doing this in Baku, my plans are to visit Yerevan with the same mission.

You manage to organise meetings between parliamentarians. Is it due to the support LINKS gets from the British Government?

In UK the state can not interfere in the work of NGOs. We act and we speak only on behalf of our organisation. Our positions on various issues are formulated at the meetings of the Board, and we are ourselves responsible for all we do. Of course, we are interested to know what the position of our state is, and we regularly inform the government of our work. We have very good co-operation both with the House of Lords and with the House of Commons. I can say that our activities are mostly funded from British taxpayers' money. The state gives no money to us. Fund-raising is a transparent process - this is our policy.

 How realistic are your expectations that the dialogue between parliamentarians from Armenia and Azerbaijan will bear results? Both of the countries are presidential republics, and parliamentarians do not have much of a say in the policy pursued by the state. Probably LINKS should also organise meetings between government officials?

Negotiations are going on at different levels. The highest level is negotiations between the presidents. Next come meetings between deputy foreign ministers that discuss technical matters. The OSCE Minsk Group meets with the leaders of the two states and seeks to resolve the problem through mobilisation of international public opinion. We hold negotiations at an informal level. Needless to say, the problem cannot be resolved between two persons alone. Maybe, they will put their signatures under the joint agreement, but in reality the problem will have to be solved by the public, the societies of the two states. People should communicate with each other, establish contacts. When they begin to realise that time has come for concrete steps, those steps will be a starting point for a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

Do you mean the grass-roots diplomacy?

I believe in the grass-roots diplomacy and I think it can be very effective. However, we should try to have this process well organised. This cannot be done overnight. If the Azerbaijani  and Armenian communities of Karabakh express their willingness to meet round the table for discussions, we will support such contacts. We think that the dialogue should start. Participants of the meetings should define for themselves their parameters and understand why they are meeting.

When will the next meeting of the parliamentary initiative take place?

It will be held in Georgia in June. Before that we will be meeting all groups of parliamentarians. It is necessary to agree on modalities, define the themes for talks, so that they could be both constructive and useful.