Baku and Yerevan have failed to reach a peace treaty in the wake of the 2020 Second Karabakh War and Azerbaijan’s lighting operation to take over Karabakh on September 19, 2023. This failure is due to two fundamental issues. First, both Yerevan and Baku have been in search of a silver bullet to make peace and resolve all their problems once and for all. Second, they have sought such a silver bullet in different capitals, from Moscow to Washington, from Ankara to Brussels and Paris. Instead, they should accept that either no such silver bullet exists or, if it does, it lies in small, tangible steps, uneasy concessions, and slow and long processes of reconciliation and conflict transformation that require them both to capitalize on their own potential for peace. In this context, the Armenian-Azerbaijani joint statement on prisoner exchanges and other confidence-building measures is a good illustration.
The first direct Armenian-Azerbaijani deal
The Office of the Prime Minister of Armenia and the Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan issued a joint statement on December 7, 2023. Baku and Yerevan agreed to release 34 servicemen, including 32 Armenians and 2 Azerbaijanis. Moreover, Armenia withdrew its candidacy in support of Azerbaijan’s bid to host the 29th Session of the Conference of Parties (COP29) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Baku reciprocated Yerevan’s gesture by supporting Armenia’s candidacy for membership in the COP Bureau of the Eastern European Group. Furthermore, Baku and Yerevan vowed to continue discussions for more confidence-building measures. The release of 32 Armenian servicemen compared to 2 Azerbaijanis is a win for Yerevan and a concession from Baku, whereas Armenia’s withdrawal from its candidacy in favor of Azerbaijan to host COP29 compared to Baku’s support for Armenia’s candidacy for membership in the Eastern European Group’s COP Bureau is a win for Baku and a concession from Yerevan. Holistically, this is a win-win deal based on mutual concessions.
This joint statement is considered to be a landmark development, as it is the first direct, bilateral deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan since their independence from the former Soviet Union. Secretary of the Armenian Security Council Armen Grigoryan said that the deal is the result of direct Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations, as no third party was involved. But there are speculations that Washington played a role in reaching the deal. Both US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs James O’Brien’s meeting in Baku on December 6 and Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s phone call on November 27 with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev prior to the joint statement support these speculations.
Mutual distrust is a major obstacle to peace
Mutual distrust, which has been reinforced after three decades of conflict and two bloody wars, is the main obstacle to converting this momentum into peace. Due to the lack of trust, the two parties seek a solution and mediation to their problem elsewhere. Such speculations, whether true or false, are a manifestation of disbelief that Baku and Yerevan can deal with each other directly and constructively to resolve their problems. They are also a manifestation of how the choice of any host city would be toxic for the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace process. For example, Paris is unacceptable as a mediator to Baku, while Ankara is unacceptable to Yerevan. And Moscow and Brussels/Washington are at odds with one another. As a result, Tbilisi has been proposed as a potential mediator. Indeed, Tbilisi maintains equal distance from both Armenia and Azerbaijan, thereby increasing its chances of success. But the problem is that Georgia lacks the capacity to enforce or act as a guarantor for any potential peace treaty. Both Baku and Yerevan have insisted on the importance of international guarantees. Aliyev told a gathering of international experts in Baku on December 6 that Azerbaijan requires any peace agreement with Armenia to have “firm guarantees.” Likewise, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has emphasized that a possible peace treaty with Azerbaijan must have “international guarantees.” This highlights the mutual distrust between Baku and Yerevan.
Armenian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ararat Mirzoyan and Azerbaijani Minister of Foreign Affairs Jeyhun Bayramov did not meet in Brussels during the EU’s Eastern Partnership Foreign Affairs Ministerial gathering on December 11. Earlier, Aliyev said in an interview with Euronews on November 23 that was broadcast on December 9, just two days after the joint statement, that Baku was not optimistic regarding the possibility of a peace agreement by the end of 2023. Similar signals also came from Yerevan. Both Yerevan and Baku have voiced their desire for peace and, at the same time, their deep pessimism about the likelihood of an agreement. Their desire thus remains at a discursive level. To achieve this desire, more is needed, but each party expects either the other party or potential mediators to do most of the work. When that does not happen, pessimism follows.
Conflict transformation is indispensable to achieving a lasting peace
The Armenian-Azerbaijani direct deal raised a cautious hope for further normalization. Even some segments of the broader publics perceived it as a foreshadow of a potential peace treaty. Such perceptions indicate that the publics on both sides of the conflict are indifferent to confidence-building and conflict transformation. These attitudes unrealistically raise the stakes and expectations from the peace treaty, as if it would solve all outstanding issues. Moreover, if signing the peace treaty does not follow the confidence-building measures, then the latter lose their value in the eyes of the public.
Such an attitude arises from the fact that state-centric approaches have been dominant over the last three decades of the conflict, and the broader societies are thus unaware of the significance of confidence-building and conflict transformation. Past initiatives focusing on civil society were external and involved experts and journalists. Conversely, home-grown initiatives have been almost nonexistent. The same goes for the involvement of other segments of society, including those directly affected by the conflict and, in particular, families of fallen servicemen, war veterans, refugees, religious leaders, and others.
Academia has also remained largely outside, although it has the unique potential to contribute to the social fabric of peace by fostering fresh-minded younger generations and addressing issues surrounding hate speech and other forms of xenophobia and toxic phenomena. Incidentally, Azerbaijan and Armenia have the potential to succeed in that regard. Azerbaijan’s adoption of multiculturalism as an official policy and the related teaching of multiculturalism classes at all universities could be effective. Through its strong diaspora, Armenia could also bring in useful cases and lessons learned from successful international practice.
Negative or skeptical reactions have also been voiced by social media users. For instance, Azerbaijanis wonder why 32 Armenians were exchanged for 2 Azerbaijanis. Armenians voice conspiracy theories alleging that there must be some secret agenda hidden behind the deal. But such reactions also highlight the importance of bilateral Armenian-Azerbaijani engagement and confidence-building measures to get domestic publics accustomed to cooperation. Currently, they are not used to any such cooperation due to the lack of prior examples. In fact, hostile acts and speeches sometimes resonate better with the respective publics. A potential peace treaty cannot settle distrust and hostile attitudes between societies and communities.
Confidence-building is indispensable to conflict transformation. But an effective conflict transformation necessitates the involvement of the state and the broader society. So, even though the Armenian-Azerbaijani joint statement is a successful interstate confidence-building act, it is still not enough. The interstate path cannot be an outright substitute for the societal dimension in conflict transformation, which must proceed in parallel. Engaging the broader societies would boost the power of both Armenia and Azerbaijan to drive home peace. In particular, for peace to be sustainable, it is a necessity for communities, villages, households, farmers, and small businesses on both sides of the approximately 1,000-km border between the two nations to have confidence, trust, communication, and trade.
A peace treaty is not a panacea
On December 13, Azerbaijan and Armenia carried out the exchange of prisoners on their shared border directly and bilaterally, without the involvement of third states. Only the International Committee of the Red Cross was involved in order to check the health of the prisoners. The successful completion of the joint statement has set a positive and constructive precedent for the two parties. It demonstrates how the process of confidence-building that may eventually lead to building mutual trust between the two hostile nations may look. But it also recalls that the lack of societal engagement is an obstruction to a proper conflict transformation.
Yes, it is a slow, intricate process, neither as fast nor as simple as one would wish. Therefore, most importantly, the case of the joint statement teaches those on both sides of the conflict that there is no silver bullet, but rather hard work, uneasy concessions, and a genuine will for a lasting peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan are required. That is exactly why both Armenia and Azerbaijan must do more for confidence-building and conflict transformation to make the chances for peace more realistic. After all, a much-discussed and much-awaited peace treaty is not a panacea to all outstanding problems, as it would be nothing more than a formal framework agreement defining the basic principles for relations between the two states.
Rahim Rahimov is a board member of the Association of European Studies for the Caucasus. He is an analyst geographically focusing on Russia, Caucasus, Iran, and Turkey with thematic areas of interest in foreign policy, geopolitics, peace and conflict. Rahim also teaches university courses on the topics of cultural diversities and politics of culture. Previously, he has served as fellow for Baku International Multiculturalism Centre and as advisor to vice-speaker of the parliament. He tweets at @r_rahimov.