In a recent Foreign Policy article, Robert M. Cutler argued Azerbaijan’s military assault on Nagorno-Karabakh last year achieved what the OSCE Minsk Group couldn’t achieve after decades of ill-fated negotiations.Although Cutler is right to critique the Minsk Group’s inability to produce results, Azerbaijan’s refusal to accept anything less than full sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh made it impossible for the OSCE to fulfill its basic mission.Proposals to implement basic confidence and security-building measures were routinely rejected by Baku, including the installation of peacekeepers and cease-fire monitors, which it saw as consolidating Armenia’s alleged occupation.Outside the moral and legal imperative for an internationally mediated status determination to ensure the security of the region’s at-risk Armenian community, there is a strategic imperative for multilateral diplomacy too.Normalizing territorial conquest and ethnic cleansing as a method of conflict resolution sets a dangerous precedent, particularly in a volatile region where one of the leading actors, Turkey, has made a habit of the practice in Cyprus, northern Syria, and—increasingly—Iraq. Read the full story on Foreign Policy.
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