Specter of Minsk Group no longer stands between Azerbaijan and OSCE

The day before, the media and social networks discussed why the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen postponed her visit to Azerbaijan. The unfriendly media wanted to see problems between Baku and Europe, but the explanation was simple: the OSCE chief was just waiting for the Azerbaijani President to return from the Peace Summit.

On Wednesday, October 15, Ms. Valtonen visited Baku and held meetings with President Ilham Aliyev and Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov.

After the meetings, she wrote on the social network X that she had held fruitful talks with Azerbaijani officials in Baku.

"Productive talks were held in Baku today with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov. I congratulate you on reaching agreements on peace and normalization of relations with Armenia. The OSCE stands ready to support the implementation of the peace treaty and confidence-building measures. My meeting with representatives of civil society and analytical centers of Azerbaijan will take place next week," Valtonen wrote.

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is the first international organization to be joined by Azerbaijan. In January 1992, the republic became a member of the OSCE. A month later, the organization's first mission visited the country. The Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict was first discussed at the OSCE level in February 1992. At the same time, the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and the affiliation of Karabakh to our country were supported. In 1994, the Institute of Co-chairs was established, and after that, contacts between the OSCE and Azerbaijan were carried out through these "wires". For a quarter of a century, the Minsk Group Co-Chairs have become the personification of the OSCE for the Azerbaijani side, which has damaged the reputation of this European organization to a certain extent.

After the Second Karabakh War, Baku raised the issue of the liquidation of the Minsk Group. Yerevan resisted for a long time, but eventually gave up, and the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia sent an official appeal to the OSCE with a request to abolish the structure, which lost all meaning after the end of the conflict. Moreover, in the new conditions of existence of such a format, it was capable of harming the peace process.

Today, Azerbaijan and the OSCE have the opportunity to talk about something other than conflict and get rid of the specter of the Minsk Group's neighborhoods.

"Azerbaijan considers cooperation with the OSCE in a practical way," President Ilham Aliyev said two years ago at a meeting with the previous OSCE Chairman-in-Office. The Head of State spoke about the possibilities of implementing practical and pragmatic cooperation projects on such concepts as joint cooperation on transboundary rivers, humanitarian demining, "green ports", and the Middle Corridor.

Azerbaijan is interested in security and cooperation in Europe and is ready to contribute to these processes. He has already made a significant contribution by restoring his territorial integrity and extinguishing one of the serious hotbeds of conflict in the OSCE area. It cannot be said that the organization was once particularly closely involved in the Karabakh conflict or that it greatly worried the member countries (with a few exceptions), nevertheless, what was happening in the South Caucasus created toxicity and, if imposed on the war in Ukraine, could call into question the very security and cooperation that the OSCE Charter preaches..

During the Munich Security Conference last year, President Ilham Aliyev met with OSCE Secretary General and Vice-President of the Munich Security Conference Foundation Helga-Maria Schmid. The Head of State very correctly pointed out that the time has long come to abolish a number of mechanisms within the OSCE that are remnants of the past, such as the Minsk Group, the High-level Planning Committee and the post of personal representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office. And in these difficult times, "it is important to spend limited financial resources on more meaningful goals."

In August, Helsinki hosted the Helsinki+50 conference dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act. At the event, the Permanent Mission of Azerbaijan to the OSCE issued a statement recalling that the Helsinki Accords of 1975 proclaimed the inviolability of borders and the non-use of force against them as necessary conditions for peace and security in Europe. However, the selective application of these and other OSCE principles and commitments over the decades has dealt a serious blow to security and cooperation in the OSCE region. Based on the painful experience of Azerbaijan, which suffered from gross violations of these principles, we firmly believe that these principles remain in force and should be the foundation of security and stability in the OSCE region, the statement emphasized.

It seems that not everyone liked this reminder, but the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict should be studied by international organizations concerned about security in Europe, because the bitter experience of the South Caucasus may be repeated somewhere else. The OSCE must not only declare the right demands, but also ensure their fulfillment. Then there will be no wars and no bloodshed. Azerbaijan was forced to militarily restore its territorial integrity, which is supported and protected by the text of the Helsinki Accords. If Azerbaijan could rely on the OSCE mechanisms, it would not resort to a military solution to the problem. He was simply left with no choice. This includes the OSCE, on the margins of which nothing was said about the need to liberate the territories of Azerbaijan occupied by Armenia. It was only said about the inadmissibility of the use of force, which was addressed to Azerbaijan. The Minsk process has created an impenetrable wall separating Baku's just demands from the European organization. All responsibility for global justice has been delegated to neighboring countries, which are not interested in resolving the conflict.

Now everything depends on whether the OSCE can become more effective, flexible and efficient in its efforts to ensure security and cooperation in Europe. Geopolitical turbulence requires an organization to be able to quickly adjust to the situation, quickly replace "worn-out tires", as is done at the pit stop of Formula racing.

From now on, the Minsk Group no longer stands between Azerbaijan and the OSCE.

At a meeting with President Ilham Aliyev on February 15, the OSCE Co-Chair-in-Office announced that the activities of the Minsk process and related structures would be terminated by December 1, 2025, based on an appeal from Azerbaijan and Armenia.

President Ilham Aliyev, in turn, stressed that the agreements reached between Azerbaijan and Armenia in Washington under the testimony of US President Donald Trump create conditions for advancing the peace agenda. He also spoke about the importance of the TRIPP (Trump's Route) project in terms of regional cooperation benefits for the entire region.

The fact that the OSCE is beginning to show flexibility and adapt to the new realities of the region can be judged by Elina Valtonen's response to a provocative question from an Armenian journalist in Yerevan, where she visited on Tuesday. At a press conference with Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, she was asked if there was a possibility of "repatriating" voluntary migrants from Karabakh after the closure of the Minsk Group. The OSCE Chairman-in-Office actually ignored the question, saying only about the importance of long-term peace in the region. Basically, that was the answer. It consisted in the following: if Armenia insists on the return of Armenians to Karabakh, then there will be no need to dream of any long-term peace.

By the way, this is well understood in Yerevan. Mirzoyan finished off the provocateur by starting to talk about the government's plans to integrate voluntary migrants into Armenia.

If everything continues in the same spirit, the first international organization that Azerbaijan joined after regaining its independence can become a productive platform for cooperation between our country and the European space. Europe needs Azerbaijan, and today it is no longer the same country as it was in 1992. A lot has changed, and it has changed forever.