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

Q: How was it working with the Armenians?
PERINA: I think we worked quite well with them also, although Kocharian was a very
tough negotiator. Too tough, in my view. I think he lost some good opportunities by not
being a little more flexible. The real asset on the Armenian side was the Foreign Minister,
Vartan Oskanian, who was very capable and engaging to work with. He was born of
Armenian parents in Syria but had in fact been raised in the United States and became a
U.S. citizen before moving to independent Armenia. He was very straightforward and
informal but still very effective. It was like dealing with an American.
Q: So what was the status of the talks when your assignment ended?
PERINA: Well, I am glad you ask that because in fact it was not all bleak. We did make
some progress, and it stemmed from an idea I got when reading about the EU-managed
referendum on independence in Montenegro. It occurred to me that the concept of a
referendum as a way of dealing with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict had not been
explored in previous negotiation attempts. I first raised the idea one evening in July 2002
on the grounds of the Stirin Palace with the Armenian representative, Tatoul Markarian.
This was during the second formal meeting of the Prague Process. He seemed very
skeptical but said he would report it to his boss, Foreign Minister Oskanian. A few days
later he drew me aside and said that the Armenian side was not interested in this
approach. I assumed it was because the Armenians were still hoping to somehow
resurrect Key West. In any case, I thought the referendum idea was dead. But then about
a year later, both Markarian and Oskanian started telling me that they would be interested
in exploring this. They even started asking me to put it formally on the table. I think it
was because the Azerbaijani message got through that there was no way in the world
Baku would return to the Key West approach. We sounded out the Azeri side about the
referendum, and they also were initially very skeptical. Then in late 2003 Aliyev told us,
that is to say the Co-Chairs, that he was willing to discuss this idea. Agreement on this
approach led to the elevation of the Prague talks to the level of Foreign Minister. By the
time I had my last meeting as a Minsk Group Co-Chair with the Azeri and Armenian
Foreign Ministers in April 2004 in Prague, the referendum approach was the major one
on the table. In fact, despite a lot of permutations since then, it is basically the approach
that my successor Steve Mann worked on and his successor Matt Bryza has worked on.
Unfortunately though, as is obvious, it also has not brought any resolution of the conflict,
at least not so far.
Q: How was the referendum supposed to work? Who would participate?
PERINA: Well, you touch on a key issue because in fact the concept of how the
referendum would work has evolved a lot since the original idea that I had. The way I
imagined it was that all of the residents of Nagorno-Karabakh prior to the conflict who
were still living would be eligible to vote. There apparently were registration lists from
the Soviet days that would make it possible to identify them. There would be polling
places in Azerbaijan for the refugees, and so on. It would be difficult but it was possible,
and the OSCE would have organized the voting. In all likelihood, the Armenians who
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