CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VOLUME VII (1, 2) Contemporary-Eurasia-3new | Page 122

CONTEMPORARY EURASIA
settlement of the dispute. 34 The proposal included two agreements: the end
of armed hostilities and the status of NK. However, Stepanakert was not
hesitant in rejecting the proposal, as it did not express the right to self-de-
termination of NK population. The “step-by-step” approach did not put
a specifi c deadline for the determination of NK status. Nonetheless, this
time again Stepanakert rejected the proposal and brought the argument
that it cannot establish good relations with Azerbaijan. 35
After the failure of previous proposals, the OSCE Troika presented its
new “common state” proposal in November 1988. According to the new
suggestion, Azerbaijan and NK should form two components of a single
state. Nonetheless, Azerbaijan was against the proposal by arguing that it
did not preserve its territorial integrity. 36 In his turn, Boris Yeltsin defend-
ed the position of Azerbaijan, by indicating that Russia would not support
the “common state” proposal as a mechanism to reach towards the NK
confl ict resolution. 37 Following it further, starting from April 1999, the
negotiations over NK were held at the presidential level. As such, during
the CIS Moscow summit, on April 1, Kocharyan and Aliyev had a long
discussion that continued on April 26 in Washington. Within the frame-
work of those meetings, the “land-swap” proposal was being circulated.
The idea behind the new approach of resolving the NK confl ict was the
annexation of NK to Armenia and the control of the Armenian Meghri
region by Azerbaijan. Nonetheless, the “land-swap” approach towards the
resolution of the NK confl ict failed in 2001 after the Key West negotia-
tions. 38
From 1994 to 1999, during the second stage of the mediation pro-
cess, several serious steps were undertaken towards the resolution of the
NK confl ict. During Boris Yeltsin’s presidency, Russia successfully uti-
lized the NK struggle as its external policy tool by obtaining short-term
benefi ts. Further, the period was also characterized by the compromised
behavior of mediators in reaching a concrete solution to the common
problem. Nonetheless, the preservation of the “frozen” status for the NK
confl ict seemed favorable to Boris Yeltsin, as he perceived the peaceful
resolution of the NK struggle as a possible threat to Russian expanding
infl uence within the region.
34
35
36
37
38
Vladimir Kazimirov, “Karabakh: Rethinking “phased” vs. “package,” Radio Free Europe,
June 2001, https://reliefweb.int/report/armenia/karabakh-rethinking-phased-vs-package(ac-
cessed January 21, 2017).
Levon Zourabian, “The Nagorno-Karabakh settlement revisited: is peace achievable?”
Demokratizatsiya, 2006, 253.
Ibid., 260.
Liz Fuller, “Caucasus/Nagorno-Karabakh: Russia seeks to mollify Baku,” Radio Free Eu-
rope, March 1999, https://reliefweb.int/report/armenia/caucasusnagorno-karabakh-rus-
sia-seeks-mollify-baku (accessed February 16, 2017).
Jacoby, The role of the OSCE: an assessment of international mediation eff orts, 32.
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