Interesting and significant analysis from @joshuakucera here: is there a deliberate effort by the Armenian government to distance itself from the Madrid Principles? (Thread)
It is significant to see the Principles being depicted by the Armenian PM as ‘Sargsyan’s legacy’. The easiest way to discredit anything in Armenia right now is to frame it as Sargsyan’s legacy.
True, the Madrid Principles have long since become toxic, above all in Nagorny Karabakh itself, despite the fact that in their first iteration at least, they appeared to chart a route to legalised separation from Azerbaijan. aniarc.am/2016/04/11/mad…
The ‘Sargsyan legacy’ framing is nevertheless problematic. The Madrid Principles preceded Sargsyan and are just as much the legacy of his predecessor and indeed the former and current Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers who negotiated them.
Sargsyan’s real legacy was a corrupted and thereby weakened capacity to negotiate and advocate for Armenian interests within the framework of a highly stable set of ideas for resolving the conflict.
Therefore IMHO, ‘Madrid Principles’ and ‘Sargsyan legacy’ are ideas that should be kept separate. The Madrid Principles still serve as a platform and starting point for Armenian-Azerbaijani talks, and many of the ideas they contain date back to the 1990s.
These transcend any individual leader + represent the institutional legacy of the Minsk Process. What individual leaders can influence is the extent to which there is sober + realistic debate about them across the conflict. Pashinyan’s candour about the talks is of itself welcome
But if his strategy is to distance himself from the Principles it’s a risky one because whatever comes next will need to look sufficiently different, but the longevity of ideas they contain suggests that the scope for this is limited.
It’s also risky to discard the Madrid Principles before a broadened, deepened peace process (of the kind that Pashinyan has advocated for) has appeared that could generate a credible alternative.
So let the Madrid Principles be criticised and ultimately rejected if the sides no longer see prospects in them - but as a result of informed and substantive debate in a reinvigorated peace process, and not as ‘Sargsyan’s legacy’.
And for that to happen, we need a denser peace process, with wider participation, new ideas and channels, and more facetime. #NKpeace
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