NEWTIMES

It goes without saying that the use of natural gas will play an important role in the coming years.

The Second Karabakh War ended with the signing of a trilateral declaration by Russia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia on November 10, 2020, that effectively ended the protracted three-decade-long conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The declaration contained many important provisions that not only ensured the cessation of military hostilities, but also the de-occupation of the remaining Azerbaijani territories, including the cities of Kalbajar (by November 15, 2020) and Aghdam and Lachin (by December 1, 2020) without further fighting (Articles 2 and 6).

The year 2020 was unprecedented for most nations around the world owing to the many challenges ushered in by the COVID-19-induced global pandemic. For Azerbaijanis and Armenians, last year is also remembered for the 44-day war that effectively ended the three-decades-long protracted conflict between their two nations over the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan.

The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which underwent tectonic changes after the Second Karabakh War had always had underlying bias perception in Western media, partly caused by religious perception and partly by ideological divide. Strong Armenian diaspora and lobby organizations, present in Western society helped to proliferate certain narrative about the history and the current trend in the conflict. Despite the fact that for almost thirty years internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan was under Armenian occupation, Western media frequently portrayed the conflict as freedom movement of a Christian nation against Muslim Azerbaijan. Such misrepresentation was predetermined by a strong Orientalist bias, which in recent years reinforced by rising Islamophobia and Turkophobia in American and European media.

This working paper aims to analyze the mediation activity of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group through the prisms of theoretical approaches to international mediation. After providing a historical background to the mediation work of the Minsk Group Co-Chairs and highlighting the stages of the mediation, the article will further analyze the mediation work performed so far. Through the application and instrumentalization of the relevant concepts within the discipline of conflict resolution and international mediation, the work will conclude that, in terms of reaching a final solution, the mediation efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group should be characterized as, so far, being not successful.

Recently, those observing the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict witnessed another brick falling from the already shattered peace process. At the end of August, Anna Hakobyan, the wife of the Prime Minster of the Republic Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, participated in publicized military training in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan; her targets, picturing Azerbaijani subjects, went viral on social media. This happened only one year after her famous call for peace that saw her pictured with a bouquet of flowers in hand.

For many observers, Armenia would not have been able to sustain the occupation of Azerbaijani territories without decades-long military support from Moscow. Therefore, the opinions of those who believe that Russia might have ulterior geopolitical motives behind extending military support to Armenia may override. Others also believe that by keeping Azerbaijan and Armenia at war, Russia aims to keep them on a short leash, thereby maintaining its clout over the regional affairs. However, there are also those who claim that Russia is indeed a genuinely neutral meditator and does not pick sides in this thorny confrontation.