Eurasia Diary presents an exclusive interview with Emmanuel Dupuy, President of the Institute for European Perspective and Security in Paris, Brussels and Rabat.
- Mr. DUPUY you have been at liberated territories recently. Could you share you thoughts about it? What did you see there?
Having the opportunity to travel to Karabagh after the ceasefire on November 10, 2020 provided me with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to better comprehend the impact and effects of 8 months of post-conflict monitoring and reconstruction on the ground. After 44 days of intense battle and massive casualties on both sides, it is clear that the moment has come to rebuild and repair the territory.
Following the continuous 30-year conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, tangible reconstruction and immaterial reconciliation are required in these areas. The time has come to accept that the battle is finished and that everything that can be done now to reconstruct Karabagh must be done. As a result, diversion and provocation away from and in relation to that goal must be regarded as fruitless and dangerous.
The impact of conflict (mining, targeting cultural assets, destruction of houses, etc.) in Shusha, Jabrayil, Aghdam, and Fizuli underpins the urgent need for larger and faster international cooperation and improved regional ownership of the peace process.
Now that Armenians have confirmed Nikol Pashinian as prime minister and President Ilham Aliyev has proposed resuming diplomatic talks based on the last ones, which ended in Vienna in March, the time has come to turn the fragile and temporary ceasefire into a robust and comprehensive peace agreement, as the Russian-monitored agreement specifies.
I agree that the Minsk group needs adjust both its story and its composition in order to achieve this goal. Is the OSCE's 1992-1994 " Confidence Measure Diplomacy" still relevant now, given that Russia's liberal " momentum" from 1991 to 1999 has turned to a harsher Vladimir Putine Realpolitik in its borders?
Is the United States still willing to engage in the "broker approach" that they anticipated in their corporate interests 30 or 20 years ago? Is it still legal for France to speak unilaterally on behalf of its European allies?
The correct answers to these three questions should serve as the foundation for a new regional platform for peace, involving all regional allies and neighbors (including Turkey, Iran, and Georgia), who should stand "shoulder to shoulder" with Russia and the two candidates (Armenia and Azerbaijan).
- Do you believe that Armenians and Azerbaijanis can coexist peacefully?
The moment has come to consider how to reduce the enormous cost of insufficient or non-existent Trans-Caucasus integration.
South Caucasus and it’s 3 countries composing it (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan) is obviously a transit corridor, both for people, goods and ideas.
What's the difference between China's "Belt and Road Initiative" (BRI) and the European Union's "Three Seas Initiative" (3SI), commonly known as the Baltic, Adriatic, and Black Sea? (BABS)
when even the United States is willing to rebuild its eastern partnership with Black - Caspian - Central Asian states, they have all understood that reliable development, equal share of wealth, and integration are all dependent on integration, when some do not understand that fueling an anachronistic state of war and resilient hostility is a burden to peace and stability?
As a result, there is an urgent need to foresee the importance of step-by-step peace negotiations at the state level while also accelerating "think tanks" and seminar diplomacy in an unprecedented "track two" diplomatic route to establish and prioritize a new strategic alliance.
Peace may be mutually advantageous to inhabitants on both sides of the border, which is currently being consolidated between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
By Jamilya Chebutaryeva
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