ambassador rudolf v. perina - Association for Diplomatic Studies and ...

Anyway, to get back to the negotiations, there had over the years been many proposals by
the Minsk Group Co-Chairs to find a solution and each one had been rejected by one side
or the other. They included the basic ways one can solve a conflict like this: mediation,
territorial exchange, autonomy, confederation and so on. The Key West approach, which
was sort of a land for peace swap, also failed. Ironically, most of these deals failed over
what by an outsider could be considered secondary issues, issues like the status of the
corridor between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh since they are not contiguous. This
was the case also in Key West, although there is debate still on whether the leaders really
see these issues as important or just make the secondary issues deal-breakers because
they get cold feet on the whole approach and just want to get out of it. Key West, for
example, was a very good deal for the Armenian side, probably the best deal they had
ever been offered. But Azerbaijani President Aliyev started raising objections on
secondary issues, and Kocharian did not show any flexibility to accommodate him, so it
all came apart, and it was a real shame. Things really seemed at a dead end.
Q: So this where you took over?
PERINA: This is where I took over and tried to figure out how to move forward. I was
the new Co-Chair. The Russians and French were a bit burned out by Key West, and they
looked to me, to the U.S., for new ideas. For a few months, I did try to see if it was at all
possible to resurrect the Key West approach but in fact it was not. The two Presidents
were in a bad mood. They were angry at one another for the failure of Key West, and
accusing each other of bad faith. I realized we might be facing a real lull in negotiation
before new ideas could be developed. But a lull could be very dangerous in terms of
public perceptions in Azerbaijan. The Azeris were the side most frustrated with the status
quo. They saw their land as occupied and wanted progress in resolving this. If they had
no perception of an ongoing negotiation, then the Azeri public might start concluding that
war was the only way to change things. For this reason it was important to maintain a
process, at least an ongoing dialogue that showed people the sides were still talking with
one another.
I laid out this idea to the other Co-Chairs at a meeting in Washington in December 2001.
I said that we had to demand that the two Presidents agree to regularly-scheduled
meetings at a neutral location to which they would send their personal representatives. If
the representatives did nothing but stare at each other for a day, so be it. But we would
force them to continue having meetings and keep the structure of a process in place. The
two other Co-Chairs agreed, and we started sounding out the two sides. They were both
very receptive because they also understood that a visible process of negotiation was in
their interest. To be sure, there were some hitches. At first, the Armenian side insisted
that the Karabakh Armenians had to be included. Recent talks had all been just between
Aliyev and Kocharian, and we knew that Aliyev would not agree to including two
Armenian reps. Kocharian dropped this, and other problems were worked out. During a
visit that we the Co-Chairs made to Yerevan and Baku in March 2002, the two presidents
formally agreed to start new negotiations through their Personal Representatives. We
later agreed that these would take place in Prague, and this was the start of what came to
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