According to him, there are many unresolved issues, including communications, refugees, borders, natural resource management and other issues. Warlick attaches particular importance to the issue of the status of “Nagorno Karabakh,” stressing that it is impossible to achieve a lasting peace without settling the status issue to the satisfaction of both parties.
“I am not talking about the independence of ‘Nagorno-Karabakh’ (our quotation marks). I do not believe this issue is on the table, especially from Azerbaijan’s point of view, but there could be a degree of self-determination that would be acceptable to Baku,” explained Warlick, who said Armenia’s recognition of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity had so far been a very complicated matter, which meant recognizing ‘Nagorno-Karabakh’ as part of Azerbaijan. Today, Armenia is moving in that direction, and no one knows what wording it will take in the document. Warlick also believes Baku should also show that there will be a certain level of self-determination in ‘Nagorno-Karabakh’, so it would be acceptable to Armenia as well. He considers the issue of the Lachin corridor, which should connect ‘Nagorno-Karabakh’ with Armenia, important as well.
“I think there needs to be some recognition that there is a community in ‘Nagorno-Karabakh’ and that they should have a status that Armenia, Azerbaijan and the de facto authorities of ‘Nagorno-Karabakh’ accept,” the former ambassador said. The former US negotiator also commented on the activities of the Russian peacekeeping forces: “The Russian-brokered ceasefire cannot be ignored because it is the basis of where we are today. But is that the only basis, and does it somehow give Moscow leadership or privilege in future negotiations? Of course not,” Warlick stressed.
One wonders if Mr. Warlick was actually talking about “self-determination” rather than “self-governance” with regard to Karabakh, especially since Armenian journalists have been known to make this kind of “mistake” before. Journalists in Yerevan have ascribed to the late French Co-Chair Bernard Fassier, his American colleague Robert Bradtke, and Czech Ambassador to Armenia Peter Mikiska things they never said. More importantly, the former US Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group is pushing an obvious Kremlin narrative, reviving the issue of the “status of Nagorno-Karabakh” that will please Armenia. A deferred status for Karabakh is what Russia proposed at the Sochi talks.
What does this mean? Are Moscow and Washington in agreement here? Of course, the Armenian audience would like to believe that. But the truth is that after resigning from the US Department of State, James Warlick joined the Washington office of … the Russian law firm Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners. That happened in 2016. And in 2019, after another US Co-Chair, Richard Hoagland, said in an interview that Moscow was not keen on settling the Karabakh conflict, James Warlick rushed to give interviews in which he insisted that Moscow was very much in favor of a settlement. Today he once again voices the Kremlin’s position, openly playing against his former colleagues from the State Department.
