Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Protracted Conflicts in
theOSCE Area
Innovative Approaches for Co-operation
in the Conflict Zones
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Table of Contents
2
Executive Summary
6 Maps
9
1. Introduction
9 Purpose of the Project
10 Introduction to the Conflicts
15
2. Security
15 2.1 Security Aspects of the Conflicts
17 2.2 Confidence- and Security-Building Measures
in the Context of the Conflicts
20 2.3 Approaches to Take
23
3. Economics
23 3.1 Economic Aspects of the Conflicts
24 3.2 The Strengths and Limitations of Trade
25 3.3 The Strengths and Limitations of Economic Assistance
27 3.4 The Strengths and Limitations of
Capital Infrastructure Co-operation
30 3.5 Approaches to Take
30 3.5.1 Trade
30
3.5.2 Capital Infrastructure
33
4. Human Dimension
33 4.1 Societal Aspects of the Conflicts
34 4.2 Strengths and Limitations of Dialogue
36 4.3 Historical Narrative
37 4.4 Strengths and Limitations of Reconciliation
38 4.5 Approaches to Take
38 4.5.1 Dialogue
38
4.5.2 Historical Narrative
39 4.5.3 Reconciliation
41
5. Conclusions
42
43
Executive Summary
This project aims to provide a menu of innovative
ways in which the international community can
engage with all sides in the four so-called frozen
conflicts protracted conflicts on the territory
of the former USSR that include the Karabakh,
Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transdniestria
conflicts. The engagement we recommend does
not impinge upon the existing participation of the
international community, and in particular the
OSCE, in mediation efforts to resolve the conflicts;
rather, it is available to the entire international
community, not just those countries involved in
mediation. The aim of engagement is to improve
the prospects for comprehensive resolution of
the conflicts by improving security, economic,
and social conditions for all populations in the
conflict zones. Many efforts at such engagement
have been attempted in the generation since the
conflicts began. In general, all the low hanging
fruit engagement that is relatively easy has been
tried. This project of necessity looks beyond the
relativelyeasy.
Key Recommendations
Security
For all conflicts, the task of developing effective
Confidence- and Security-Building Measures consists
of inducing the sides to overcome their reflexive
aversion to CSBMs; structuring mechanisms,
acceptable to all sides, for implementing CSBMs;
and choosing individual CSBMs that will make real
improvements in security.
Economics
Human Dimension
ABKHAZIA
Sokhumi/
Sukhum
CASPIAN SEE
Georgia
Turkey
Russia
Tbilisi
Azerbaijan
Armenia
Yerevan
NAGORNYY
KARABAKH
Stepanakert
Baku
CASPIAN SEE
Azerbaijan
Iran
Syria
ABKHAZIA
Sokhumi/
Sukhum
Russia
CASPIAN SEE
SOUTH OSSETIA
Tskhinvali/
Tskhinval
BLACK SEA
Georgia
Turkey
Iraq
6
Tbilisi
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Baku
Stepanakert
CASPIAN SEE
Moldova
Chisinau
Ukraine
TRANSDNIESTRIA
Tiraspol
Romania
BLACK SEA
Bulgaria
Protracted Conflicts in
the OSCE Area
Introduction
1.1 Purpose of the Project
The so-called frozen or protracted conflicts
(Karabakh, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and
Transdniestria1) have engaged the attention of the
international community and in particular the
OSCE since the collapse of the Soviet Union. They
are exceptions: by and large the people of the Soviet
Union dissolved their state peacefully, for which the
world owes them a great debt: had the Soviet Union
collapsed amidst the same level of violence as the
former Yugoslavia, on its greater scale and with its
nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, the
world would be a very different place today. But in
these four places and several others Chechnya,
Tajikistan, and the Prigorodnyy district of North
Ossetia organized armed violence broke out; and
other places, such as Gagauzia and Crimea, were on
the edge of violence. The international community
and the OSCE in particular remain involved in the
search for political resolution of the four frozen
conflicts as well as the more recent crisis in Ukraine.
1 A note on terminology: the names of the conflicts are politically
charged and therefore controversial, and that controversy is played out
in the terminologies approved for use in the Permanent Council. The
Karabakh conflict, for example, is referred to as the conflict dealt with
by the OSCE Minsk Conference. Similar periphrastic formulations
exist for others in this group. Such circumlocution is neither precise
nor useful for the purposes of this study, and we will name the conflicts
by variants of their geographical locations: Karabakh, since the conflict
has taken place not only within the Soviet-era Nagorno-karabakhskaya
Avtonomnaya Oblast (NKAO), but also in lowland Karabakh (Karabakh
is a transliteration of the Russian spelling; the same word in Armenian
is Gharabagh; the Azerbaijani is Qaraba); Transdniestria, an OSCE
hybrid (which we have used throughout) of the Romanian Transnistria
(on the other side of the Nistru) and the Russian Pridnestrovye
(onthis side of the Dniestr); Abkhazia (the Russian in transliteration;
transliteration of the Abkhaz would be Apsny; of the Georgian,
Apkhazeti); and South Ossetia, the Russianization of the Georgian
Oseti (Land of the s); the Ossetic would normally be transliterated
into Latin script as rn or ristn, a mark of Ossetian descent from the
eastern branch of the Bronze-age Indo-Europeans who dominated the
inner Asian steppes.
10
11
12
13
14
Security
Not all forms of security engagement are applicable
to all four of the conflicts under discussion.
Engagement depends on the current security
situation, which ranges from the extremely tense
front lines in the Karabakh conflict to the calm
situation along the Transdniestria line of control.
Ironically, then, where engagement and confidenceand security-building measures are most needed,
they are least accepted by the sides. Because of this
variation, it is worth reviewing briefly the security
aspects of each of the conflicts.
15
16
10 Schmidt, 1
11 Schmidt, 2
12 Schmidt 3,5-6
17
18
19
20
21
22
Economics
23
24
25
33 http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/neighbourhood/countries/georgia/
index_en.htm
34 Beyer, John and Wolff, Stefan,
Linkage and leverage effects on Moldovas Transdniestria problem,
East European Politics vol. 32 (2016) available at
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21599165.2015.1124092
35 https://www.mcc.gov/where-we-work/program/moldova-compact
26
37 Rastoltsev 9-10
27
28
29
30
31
32
Human Dimension
As mentioned earlier, social interactions between
the sides in each of the conflicts vary with
the relationship of the separatist side to the
metropolitan state. The range is from the complete
isolation of the sides in the Karabakh conflict from
one another to the extensive interaction of the
sides in the Transdniestria conflict. That baseline
where each of the conflicts falls on the spectrum
determines and imposes limits on how useful
dialogue and reconciliation can be in any one of the
conflicts.
33
34
35
problems arise that can only be resolved through cooperation with the other side, those who participated
have concrete acquaintances and relationships on
which they can call to help resolve the issues. That
process does not in itself make actual negotiations
on a comprehensive settlement any less complex; but
it does put in place conditions that may improve the
atmosphere of negotiations.
There are, however, always limitations as obstacles
reassert themselves: in even the most successful
dialogues programs, participants return to their
homes persuaded that their fellow participants in
those programs are worthwhile interlocutors, but
with unchanged convictions about the larger enemy
society as a whole. Moreover, their position in
their home societies requires them to be extremely
careful not to demonstrate any softening in their
own opinions, lest they be branded as traitors. The
effects of bilateral dialogue therefore rarely extend
beyond the participants themselves.
36
48 Goda, 1-2
37
38
4.5.3 Reconciliation
In efforts to promote reconciliation, the role of
interfaith work has been underused.51 For example,
the Orthodox Church remains the most trusted
institution in Georgia and Patriarch Ilia retains
great influence. Georgia and South Ossetia are
predominantly part of the Orthodox communion
(though the large Armenian and Azerbaijani
minorities in Georgia are not); the Abkhaz contain
both Orthodox and Sunni Muslim communities. The
Abkhazian and South Ossetian orthodox dioceses
belong de jure to the canonical territory of the
Georgian Orthodox Church, though ecclesiastical
rule from Tbilisi has not been exercised for many
years.52 The Russian Orthodox Church recognizes
the canonical territory of the Georgian Orthodox
Church, including South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Ecclesiastical diplomacy perhaps a joint visit of
senior clerics from Moscow and Tbilisi may be
useful in promoting reconciliation at least among
religious communities.
39
40
Conclusions
The protracted conflicts have over the years engaged
a great deal of the international communitys
attention, especially when one considers the modest
some of them extremely modest populations
involved. They have engaged the world for different
reasons at different times, and as a result many
well-wishers have taken a crack at finding some
new way to approach one or more of them. There
is nothing new under the sun, as the Ecclesiast says,
and approaches that have never been tried are few.
Many of those approaches billed as new, while wellreasoned, repeat efforts that were tried many years
ago; to extend the Ecclesiastical metaphor, there
is no remembrance of things past. Many of the
suggestions in our eleven papers well researched
though they were have in fact been tried before;
and others that fit in well with academic theory have
been seen to fail in practice.
41
Human Dimension
Schmidt, Hans-Joachim
Peace Research Institute Frankfurt
Protracted Conflicts: International Engagement
for Security and Welfare
Dimitrov, Atanas
Centre for Strategic Studies in Defence and
Security, Department of National and Regional
Security, University of National and World
Economy, Sofia
OSCE Citizens Relations in the Areas of
Protracted Conflicts as Non-Military Confidence
and Security Building Measures
Tytarchuk, Oleksandr
East European Security Research Initiative
Foundation, Ukraine
Conventional Arms Control and Military
Confidence- and Security-Building Measures in
Handling Current Protracted Conflicts:
the Transdniestrian Case
Zellner, Wolfgang
Institut fr Friedensforschung und
Sicherheitspolitik an der Universitt Hamburg
Status-Neutral CSBMs
Economics
Kemoklidze, Nino and Wolff, Stefan
Institute for Conflict, Co-operation and Security,
University of Birmingham
Trade as a Confidence-Building Measure
Lebanidze, Bidzina
Georgian Institute of Politics
Taking Preferences Seriously: on Economic
Engagement as a Win-Win Option for Political
Elites in Abkhazia and Georgia
Van der Togt, Tony
Clingendael Institute, The Hague
Economic Relations between the EU and
Moldova/Transdniestria: a Chance for Closer Cooperation with the Russian Federation/Eurasian
Economic Union?
42
Goda, Samuel
Slovak Foreign Policy Association
Republic of Moldova and Reconciliation:
Mission Possible
Manton, Ida and Saner, Raymond
Diplomacy Dialogue, CSEND Geneva
Multilateral Co-operation Revisited - Establishing
the Way Forward by Reassessing the Realities
Rastoltsev, Sergey
Primakov Institute of World Economy and
International Relations (IMEMO) of the Russian
Academy of Sciences, Moscow
Russian Engagement in Transdniestria and
Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict Resolution: Human
Dimension
Tamminen, Tanja, Relitz, Sebastian and
Jngling, Konstanze
Institut fr Ost- und Sdosteuropaforschung,
Regensburg
New Corridors of Dialogue: Strengthening
Durable Formats for Engagement across the
Protracted Conflict Zones
43
44
This report is the joint production of a group of twelve institutes of the sixty current members of the
OSCENetwork of Think Tanks and Academic Institutions.
The OSCE Network is an autonomous OSCE-related track II initiative. It is not an OSCE structure or affiliated
with the OSCE or its participating States. The Networks members are research institutions from across
the OSCE area engaged in academic research and policy analysis on issues relevant to the OSCEs agenda.
TheNetwork is a flexible and informal format founded by more than a dozen research institutions on 18 June
2013 after discussions during the 2013 OSCE Security Days, inspired by a proposal made by OSCE Secretary
General Lamberto Zannier in his inaugural speech in July 2011. It is open to think tanks and academic
institutions willing and able to contribute academic expertise and policy analysis on OSCE-relevant issues.
Itprovides expertise, stimulates discussion and raises awareness of the OSCE, and shares expertise and
co-ordinates joint projects and activities among its members. Neither the Network nor its members
representthe OSCE and the views expressed by network members are their personal opinions and do
notreflect the views of the OSCE.
Hamburg
December 2016
ISBN 978-3-00-055097-3