Internal and External Dimensions of the Ethnic Conflict in the Caucasus (transcript)

Internal and External Dimensions of Ethnic Conflict in the Caucasus

Kazim Azimov

June 28, 2001
MELISSA CARR: Many of you have met Kazim Azimov. He has been here since the end of April. He is in the United States on a program called the Junior Faculty Development Program, which brings faculty members from universities in countries of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe to the United States to train, study, develop curriculum materials, and teach. We at Harvard are fortunate that part way through Kazim''s year at the University of Hawaii, we were able to arrange for him to come join us here, in part because the University of Hawaii went on strike.

While he is here in the United States -- and certainly for many years prior to his time in the United States -- Kazim has been studying ethnic conflict and ethnic dimensions of societies. He has doctorates from Moscow State University and Baku State University. His area of specialization was history of philosophy and culture of Ancient Greece, Iran, India, Azerbaijan, Central Asia and Medieval Islam. He has a wide range of specialties. He currently holds a position at Baku State University; he is a visiting professor at the Department of Sociology there. He is with us at the Caspian Studies Program until the middle of July as an associate.

He is going to share some thoughts about the internal and external dimensions of ethnic conflict in the Caucasus. He will do a half-hour presentation, and then we will open up for discussion. There will be a few points during his presentation when he will state that something he is saying is off the record. I ask that everyone respect that, and not take it further than this room. Please don''t attribute it to Kazim, and please don''t repeat it outside of this room. Other than that, it is relatively on the record, and we are recording it. There will be a summary of the seminar available on our web page shortly.

KAZIM AZIMOV: Thank you very much Melissa. Ladies and gentlemen, I am very happy to discuss this very important topic of ethnic conflicts in the Caucasus, particularly one of the most protracted conflicts in the region, Nagorno-Karabagh. This topic is very complicated and very hard. But, at the same time, it is very easy for me to talk about it. It is difficult because much has been written -- I have become acquainted with American and European writers'' works and their comparative analysis of conflicts in the Caucasus. It is easy because I will look at the problems from the point of view of an expert, having dedicated several books to the Azerbaijani and Middle Eastern comparative studies. In this sense it is easy for me to talk about the issues.

My American and Western colleagues have written numerous interesting works on conflicts in the Caucasus and particularly in Azerbaijan. Those works have been written predominantly by historians, journalists and political analysts. They are distinguished basically in their empirical findings.

Despite the merits and value of these works, some of them suffer from the methodological and theoretical point of view. My remarks concern mainly the conceptual frames and instruments in defining some essential notions and categories of ethnicity, nation, nationalism, and particularly the concept of conflict itself. The majority of works do not demarcate between ethnic conflict and wars based on contested territories or armed conflicts as a result of struggle for power by some political groups.

This circumstance brings me logically to the discussion of some important aspects of conflict. First of all, I think that researches in this area should enter a new phase, which requires new approaches to conflict studies. In this regard, I would propose the cultural anthropology or ethnographic field research method, which could incorporate empirical finds with methodological principles within the frame of modern sociology.

What I mean is that when foreigners come to Azerbaijan and the Caucasus, they keep records of the events they watch or write diaries about them. After spending several weeks or months there, they write books or larger articles upon their return back home. That is nice. What I would like to underline in this respect is that field research should be first documented directly, then based on sociological or social anthropological analyses. This means that field research study is, at the same time, the generalization of works, which scholars conduct in the fields, observe and document the events directly, then translate them into the language of social and political sciences. In other words empirical finds have been incorporated into methodologically grounded frameworks.

One of the issues I am much concerned about is the means or ways the international communities use to regulate or accommodate the ethnic conflicts in modern world, and the Caucasus as well. Ethnic conflicts in the former Soviet Union, particularly in the Caucasus and Azerbaijan, have been regulated so far according to the rules of international law and international policy. This imposes several serious problems and questions. In this connection, I would like to draw your attention to the following points. As you may know, those laws and rules were adopted in regard to the colonization and the post-colonization periods, and in reference to the so-called developing Third World. Moreover, they were adopted by international communities either before or immediately following World War II, or in some cases in the 1960s or 1970s. Today, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, we live in one global village. My question is how is it appropriate and can be justified to apply these old laws -- the so-called "bible" of policy makers, which incidentally has got a lot of hermeneutics problems too -- to the solution of conflicts in the new world order or disorder? At the same time, this controversial theory asserts that any solution should come from within the countries where the conflicts take place.

It is very good and reasonable when the international community offers solutions. It is especially useful in terms of exchange of different experiences. But at the same time, they can be adopted or adjusted to the situation when conflicting sides agree with the proposed solutions, of course, without pressures by external players. This I call "pragmatic and realistic approach." This is different from that whenever we are told, for instance, "Okay, this variant, say ''common state'' is very good in regard to Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands, so it can be applied to the situation in the Caucasus. Or it can be applied to Nagorno-Karabagh." I wonder whether we should not choose between alternative proposals made by external actors when we settle the conflicts in our own homes. How political elites in the Caspian countries may sell to their peoples any solution to the conflict which contradicts the will of populace.

By the way, I was very glad to find this fact in the works of American diplomats, who note that we should work jointly together -- work with Azeri intellectuals, Armenian intellectuals, all the Caucasian people together. We should discuss these matters, then hold a round table and discuss it again and again until the population gives its consent, and is ready to accept that solution of the conflict which does not contradict the sovereignty of the people or their self-determination. I am worry about what we have here. I think we have here the "elite" solution.

People say that this is an elite negotiation; the political elite finds a solution to the problem. But what about the population? What about the people? Will the people accept the solutions to the conflict, which have been made up by political elite together with international communities? Probably, Western and American policymakers rely much on some authoritarian methods of the Caucasian political leaders whom they expect to be capable of implementing any solution by means of authoritarian regimes. All these solutions, I think, are in vain unless there is a strong understanding among the central government and opposition parties. Otherwise, you face a lot of contradictions and protests, strong ethno-political and nationalistic sentiments.

You know that international practice generally uses two types of conflict regulation, solution, or management. One is the consociational and the other is an integrative approach. They give birth to different types of federalism, confederalism, and semi-confederalism, which are largely applied to conflicts in the world. Given the situation, several things should be taken into account. First, Azeri or the Caucasian societies are not the same as in the West. This is not a contractual society like Western societies. This is traditional society, or communal society, where traditional values play an important role. I understand the modern policy-makers who are neglecting or rejecting the values and the historic developments, saying that history does not matter in solving ethnic conflicts. They just "cut" the history of these people, as if their history starts not from ancient times, not from the medieval ages, but from or after the First or Second World War. But then the question can be posed: how long will that peace be valid? Is it a long-term peace solution, or is it temporary while oil is being carried from one place to another?

This is a very important point, I think. Stability brings a lot of investments to the country. This is, I think, one of the great dignities of our president, Heydar Aliev, who really provided a very pragmatic, optimistic policy, allowing foreign investors to put money into the economy of Azerbaijan. But that was not done in the period of the National Front. And the National Front didn''t bring any investors to the country. The National Front carried a one-sided, unilateral policy. This policy was directed to the regional player, Turkey. It was said that whole Azeri population was originally Turks. In result, they confused and misinformed American and Western societies and publics.

I would just like to point out on the map (USES VISUAL AID) the ethnic situation. By the way, the map shows two things, the physical map and political map. You should know that Azerbaijan is multi-ethnic. The Azeri people from ancient times, until the coming of the Arabs and Turks, had belonged to the Indo-European culture. Iranian cultural values of Azeris were interacted and intermingled with the Turks culture starting from eleventh century A.D. Thus, during the Popular Front''s rule, ethnic or national question in Azerbaijan had been very tense and dangerous.

I spoke with former President Elchibey several times. I said, "You know that you are bringing great dangers for other nationalities -- ethnic minorities in Azerbaijan. We do not really have the concept of nation in the European sense. We do not have the national-building or state building process in the Caucasus. You do not have it in Armenia either. Even though it is more homogenous in ethnic relations. This point raises another question: what sense does it make if we use the word "state" or " nation " out of the European cultural context?

This simply means that you should be very cautious with the terms like "Azeri nation, Armenian nation, and Georgian nation." What sort of nation? When did we pass the industrial revolutions and capitalist ways of social and political developments? Did we pass that? Or did we really found the nation- state in the Soviet Era? When did it happen? Maybe, somebody will bring serious facts in this regard. I don''t know. I would be very glad to have them.

(REFERRING TO A MAP) In this area -- I mean Gusar -- Guba and Xachmaz, Lezgins and Avars live. And here you notice in Ismailli-Lahijan, Tats and Lahij -- Iranian-speaking people. Here we have in the South -- Iranian-speaking people, the Talysh. This is the southern part of Azerbaijan. I would like to draw your attention to this -- Balakan, Zakatala— where Lezgins and Turks live together. We have here Kelbejar, Zengilan, especially Lachin - Kurdic-speaking people, who gradually became "Turkicized." This has been historic and natural process, when the Turkic culture became dominant in these areas which had once been Iranian-dominated.

But language is not the main indicator, you know that from European history of ethnic identity. Because ethnic identity can be socially constructed in many ways. For example, one can say that "I belong to this party; this is my ethnic identity." "I belong to Mr. President''s party. This is my ethnic identity." "I belong to social or religious groups, it is my ethnic identity."

I understand that a solution to the conflict is not in the history. The solution is in the future, and that solution should be political and peace. And history should be the usable history, which helps promote the solution to conflicts. And in this sense in traditional societies like Azerbaijan and Georgia history should be usable history. At the same time traditional and historical values cannot be ignored. But this is not the concern of policy, of course. This is the concern of cultural developments and finding the more civil forms among ethnic groups to live together. In this connection, I argue the Azeris and Armenians, the Georgians and the Abkhazs will be able to build up a civil nation- state in which different ethnic groups will be living and creating together. It requires time and hard work. Democracy and market reforms would be preconditions for those developments.

Recently, Mr. Irakli Machavariani from Georgia gave a talk here. He said, "You know the situations in Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia are different. The Azeris are Muslims, but the Georgians and the Armenians are Christians." In regard to the statements like these, history does matter. And while there is time for it, I would like to state my opinion on this problem. But very shortly. The problem is that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are three sister religions. They have almost the same origins, and you know that. But one should bear in mind that these religions are not Western religions. They can be questioned, and really they have been questioned in a number of profound works written by the thinkers in the West and East. Here you really can say religion does not matter. Of course, I do not want to assert that all three religions are entirely identical in terms of values, or doctrines. What I say is that religious differences in the Caucasus do not play important role in shaping political and economical developments. Moreover in the recent history all these countries had been atheists. I mean during the Soviet Era when we all were one nation.
We should look for such a political solution of ethnic conflicts in the Caucasus that will be able to meet the demands of all ethnic groups living there, but not only of the Armenians, the Azeris, or Georgia -- those titular nations of the former Soviet Empire. For example, I don''t understand when political leaders and government officials say, "Armenia or Abkhazia will be granted a high level of autonomy, even the highest level of autonomy."

Multi-ethnic state cannot guarantee the highest autonomy to one of its ethnic groups, neglecting at the same time such autonomy to its other ethnic groups. This solution is based on a bad logic: one ethnic group is better or stronger than others. The consequence is that all other ethnic minorities will demand autonomy, either territorial or cultural. Because we have the problems here (REFERS TO MAP), and I am just going to criticize the existing policies in Azerbaijan with respect to these ethnic groups.

Armenia has eventually assimilated minority groups within its territory, so they assert that they have a homogenous population. In fact, they achieved it by the recent ethnic cleansing of Azeris from Armenia, and Nagorno- Karabagh. Historically they achieved it by assimilating the Albans and Kurdish population especially, as well as the Lezgins, Dins, and some others. Again we see that history matters. As to Georgia and Azerbaijan, they are still multi-ethnic societies. Here, the problems of human, and minority rights arise. These rights are denied and violated in Georgia and Azerbaijan. In both, regionalism, tribalism, clans, rivalries, and corruption prevent countries from developing democracy and social reforms. There is no democracy in the Caucasian countries.

What we have there is a formal democracy. They have copied well the democratic constitutions of developing countries. They say that things are okay and tell Westerners that they are a democratic country. But very often the outside observers do not know about these [falsehoods]. I qualify these societies as a "kleptocracy." They are a lot of thieves, groups of people robbing, doing all sorts of negative and amoral things. We have the problem of minorities because minorities have been denied rights to cultural autonomy. They have been denied the right to publish newspapers in their language, and denied rights in all respects. That is why Abkhazians are rebelling. These ethnic minorities are always ready to start potential ethnic conflicts. They are covert conflicts. They will be overt, open to all people. And while time permits, we can just find some solution. And the solution is democracy. The solution is building real democratic structures in the society. The solution is strengthening democracy, and readiness of political elite to share powers and competence at different levels, especially in the matters concerning the minorities'' developments.

The major point is elections. They have never been held democratically and freely in the Caucasus, but they have been provided according to the decisions from above, very often by appointment. Why does it happen? I think that West and America are faced with very dangerous phenomenon -- neocommunist nomenklaturas. The Soviet Empire collapsed. But did Communist power collapse? No. I will give you an example. In all the former Soviet countries, political and economic powers are in the hands of the Communists again. So you have a lot of problems in the future with these Communists.

And what about the party formation? In these countries, parties are not formed according to the regulations or platforms of the party or in order to do something for the country. Rather, they are formed around one person, around one personality. Because they are the heads of the parties, people think they should run and join the party. That is why I emphasize that it is very important to democracy to have free elections, freedom of speech, and freedom of thought.

The second point is also very important. The process of devolution of the state power, where the powers are dispersed or proliferated at different levels -- this is democracy. But we do not have that. We have a central government. And, this government is involved in ethnic conflict. But the government should stay above this ethnic conflict, as we know they do in Western countries or in the United States, which is deprived of ethnic biases or racial prejudices in regard to its citizens or ethnic minorities. I think this is enough. If you have additional questions, I would be very interested to answer them.

QUESTION: Could you explain what percentage of the population of Azerbaijan does not speak Azeri as its first language?

AZIMOV: Thank you very much. That is a very good question. First, I will be very short because sometimes we forget about the time. Azeri is a very specific term; this is an Iranian term. And we have the word in all modern Iranian languages. It means "fire" and "those who worship the fire." So from time to time, it had been the name of the ethnicity, but in the late centuries this term became geographical. Especially when Stalin insisted upon it, because the Soviet nationality policy was to build one society, one Soviet nation. And so geographically the term Azeri was very good for that political intention. This is the first part of your question.

But regarding the percentage, I cannot say. Why? Because the official census is so unfair in this regard. They conceal the number of the people. For example, how many Lezgins or how many Talyshs. Everything is wrong. But according to some independent investigations, I have some data in respect to Talysh indicating that there are about one and a half million people. When we talk about this, they say, "Oh, this is not right. Where are they?" Okay, if it is not the case, let us conduct a fair census, conduct an investigation and see how many people are living there.

FOLLOW UP: You pointed to a large number of geographic areas in Azerbaijan. Is the dominant group not Turkic speaking?

AZIMOV: All these people are speaking Turkic. They know it, and we can say that it is their native tongue. We study Turkic, lessons are in Turkic, school is in Turkic. But that happened in the sixteenth century. This was the first wave. But that happened generally in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, with the influence of Istanbul Turkish, Anatolia Turkish. They had been enlarged and the language highly propagated.

That is why I invite you to come and see - not to listen to the officials sitting in their offices, telling you a story. Please come to this area. Come to these locations, write diaries, talk to the people, and ask their opinions. "Who are you? What are you? Why did it happen?" Only then will you have a realistic knowledge of Azerbaijan. Right now all of this is propaganda. I am sure that the day will come when you will know about this. As soon as you come to our country, you will see that the case is not what you have been propagating. This is my point.

FOLLOW UP: I am looking for clarification. Are you saying that everyone speaks Turkic as a native tongue, or that there are portions where Lezgins are speaking another language, Talysh?

AZIMOV: I would just bring my experience. In my family, my father''s side is Turkic speaking. But my mother''s side is Talysh-speaking, Iranian speaking people. And these people are compactly living in these homes. But we just treat the Turkic language as the native language, because we speak this language in the families, in the kindergartens, etc. For example, my son doesn''t even know the Talyshi language. Why? Because he is growing up in Baku, where everything is in Turkic.

But generally this is a very large problem, to pursue the history of "Turkicizing" the population. This is the real key. And there are several things of course that can be discussed when the experts on this matter are present. And that is why my answer is shortened like this.

QUESTION: Are all schools in Turkic now? They used to be in Russian, and now they are in Turkic?

AZIMOV: They were in Russian, yes. But by the way, we cannot say it is Turkish, because the Turkic dialect that we are using has been adjusted to the situation of Azerbaijan. It is one of the Turkic dialects that the majority of Azeris speak. This is one of the dialects. We cannot say it is Istanbul Turkish. We cannot say it is Kurdistan Turkish or something like that. It is definitely one sort of dialect that people of Azerbaijan speak. Their cultural and historical development shaped this language in a manner that they just wanted to, or wished to, shape it.

QUESTION: Isn''t it its own language, "Azerbaijani-Turk?"

AZIMOV: "Azeri-Turkic," we call it like this.

QUESTION: Language, in the Turkic family? So it is not really a dialect. It is a language. Right?

AZIMOV: Turkic yes. Azeri-Turkic dialect. Language is a quite different thing, you know.

QUESTION: Is that the only language that is used in schools?

AZIMOV: You know, when the National Front came to power, [former Azerbaijani president Abulfaz] Elchibey gave a decree that the minority people could speak in their own languages. But now we do not have that. We do not have schools in those languages or newspapers or journals in those languages.

QUESTION: Central Asian societies dominated by Islam -- that are in fact religious states, in contrast to secular states -- can be characterized as traditional societies in many cases. The one exception of course is Turkey, which is a secular state. To what extent is the traditional character of Azerbaijan explained by its Islamic influence? And, are there influences in the other direction, secularizing influences, that would push the society into a more modern state?

AZIMOV: Traditional society is not necessarily religious. This is the first remark in regard to your question. Concerning Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan wishes to develop a society which will resemble the Turkish -- Anatolian Turkish -- society. Or maybe, not even Turkey, generally we can call it a secularized type of society that you have in the West in which religion is not so dominant as it is in some modern Middle Eastern countries.

QUESTION: I have two questions. The distinguished professor criticized the former Communist Party leaders. The first question is has he been a member of the Communist Party before? And the second question is about minorities. He showed the minorities in the northern areas and southern areas, and he mentioned about 1.5 million Talysh speaking people. I know that the distinguished professor is from the southern area, and his father is Azeri and his mother is Talysh. So the entire region is not fully Talysh, as I understand. And the biggest region in Azerbaijan was Agdam, and its population is 120,000. I think that Lerik, Masalli, and other regions do not count for more than 50-60,000. How can you take this figure, 1.5 million Talysh and what can you say about the Azerbaijani people living in this area? If they grant the autonomy to these regions, how can you settle the issue of Azerbaijanis living in this area? Will you grant the autonomy to Azerbaijanis living in Talysh area too?

AZIMOV: Thank you for the question. The first question about whether I was a member of the Communist Party. I studied in the university and I got the stipend named after Lenin. That was the highest title, and I was very comfortable getting that, because I studied and received excellent marks. I was a party member when I was a student. That was because of my good studies. They said, "You should be the member of the Communist Party." And until now I am keeping my Communist Party membership ticket in my home.

Hegel had very nice idea. He said, "You know, we cannot just correct ourselves, improve our character and our moral life. So we just criticize society, criticize the enterprises and say that they are guilty of that. They are guilty of that; we are so not correct people. Right people." So we should criticize ourselves, not independent of that, Communist Party member or not. The ticket is not the case that I mentioned. The mind is very important. Morality is very important. I know many people among Communist Party members who are moral and nice people. But the majority, of course, was not. They used to get all sorts of bribes; they were corrupted. All of these things are now reality. They are carrying the mission that they got from the Soviet empire, the Communist empire, and they are taking it again and making these things. Everything is by appointment. You should either belong to the party of the leader, or if you are not a member of that party, you are denied your rights. You are denied the right of being elected to the parliament, denied the right to be represented at the governmental levels. This is the case in Azerbaijan, in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and even worse in several countries of he the former Soviet Union.

Of the second question, I think you are right asking where I can get such a definite number. I have taken the data from an independent investigation, when Talysh people themselves have independently indicated to the number of the population. I show only the areas where they are compactly living. I pose a question to you, and you explain to the people. What about Sumgait?

QUESTION: What do you mean by Sumgait?

AZIMOV: How many Talysh live in Sumgait, I mean assimilated, diffused? I simply showed only where people compactly live. What concern Azeri Turks living in this area? My problem is not to give the Talysh people some autonomy or something like that (REFERING TO THE MAP). I have my idea about the establishment of Azerbaijan. This is non-territorial problem, but a civil, non-territorial, corporate federalism.

QUESTION: But I hope you aren''t suggesting the creation of a Talysh territory in Sumgait, right? It is my idea; and minorities exist everywhere. What is your idea?

AZIMOV: My idea is not in the sense of federal structure, in the sense of territories, even in respect to all people, minorities, living in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan should first of all be a democratic country. This is the first condition for the development of human resources. But it can be of course, after that, non-territorial, corporate federalism with dispersion of powers among the minorities, where minorities are given the right to be represented at the different levels of societies and governments.

This is the same for Georgia. Why? According to the logic of democratic development in Western countries, democracy demands more federalism. Federalism is very good for the developing world. But of course there are cases, examples such as Kosovo. I can even show examples such as in Hawaii, where there are many voices among local people demanding for their sovereignty. They say that the American people annexed their land. They told me about this, and I read in the literature, newspapers, watched TV about the ethnic tensions in Hawaii. So such is the human nature. The more you give to him today, the more he demands tomorrow.

This is the main theory of human nature''s development. According to this theory, everything should be given to them. But again I repeat: I am not for a federal structure of Azerbaijan in terms of territories.

(End of tape)

If you give it to the Armenians, the highest autonomy, you should give it to other minorities too because they are not worse than Armenians. They will demand the same, even more. Why not? Why to Armenia?

QUESTION: So are you saying that a reason not to give autonomy to Armenians in Nagorno-Karabagh is because it will create a precedent that other ethnic groups will then—

AZIMOV: Quite right. If Armenia wants to live in this society, they must live according to the rules and conditions, which have equal sense for all people. The state should be democratic. The state should foster market relations. The state should not be a kleptocracy. It should be a moral state with respect for human rights that are not contingent upon who you are. It doesn''t matter if you are an Armenian, an Azeri or a Russian. People are all the same, I think. And for society state-building people, I think this is very important.

In this sense, Azerbaijan can have non-territorial federalism. Azerbaijan should be a corporate federalist state to settle all the Armenian problems. That is very different, because they can be together. I agree with the other things: to have two chairmen in the parliament, to conduct trade, and to have joint Armenia projects, oil.

But to curtail or to reshape the territories of Azerbaijan would give birth to many dangerous conflicts, I am sure of that. These people would be asking for autonomy too. The same is true in Georgia. Today it is Abkhazia, then tomorrow the other ethnic groups would demand autonomy. So we should find a way to live together.

The major question is how to make people live in this democratic society. And to ask the people themselves how they want to live. But Armenia wants independence in the fullest sense of the word. But Azerbaijan before was dependent upon the Kremlin. Now Azerbaijan depends on several countries -- Western countries, America -- to meet all the demands of these countries. It was easy to make demands only on Moscow.

In nature, there is no concept -- what does it mean, absolute independence or highest independence? Even America is not so independent I think, because America should work with us, should work with Uzbekistan and every people in the world and try to meet their demands. In this sense, America is also dependent in the fullest sense of the word, not in the internal sense of the word. It is a free country, a sovereign country.

In forging geopolitical relationships in this sense, all countries in general are relatively dependent. I don''t want to bring in a historical example -- this is my profession. All historical material has been falsified by Armenia. Nagorno-Karabagh never belonged to Armenia. (Inaudible) But historically, culturally, this is Azeri land. Azerbaijan''s land.

Again I say I am not for going into the depths of history. History should be usable history and should help today''s solution of the problem.

QUESTION: When you refer to Georgia as another example, what other ethnic problems are there -- in terms of minorities are trying to get independence or high autonomy -- besides the ones that already exist in the state? What do you mean? Another thing, there were these Armenian minorities that demanded some autonomy in the beginning of the 1990s. There is the problem of Abkhazia, there is the problem of Ossetia. Are there any other ones?

AZIMOV: No, no.

FOLLOW UP: They have already stated their demands, I think. And I don''t understand how that can become more problematic then it is already. And when you refer to Georgia as an analogy, do you mean that solving ethnic problems should be not granting any autonomy to any of these ethnic groups, or granting highest possible autonomy to all of them?

AZIMOV: Thank you. In answer to the second part [of the question], whether the highest autonomy could be applied in Georgia as in Azerbaijan. I am against territorial autonomy. But non-territorial autonomy, cultural autonomy can be given. Whenever you give territorial autonomy, in the case of Azerbaijan and in the case of Georgia, it means that tomorrow they will be asking for more and more. There will be secession to the independence that they understand in the absolute sense of the word. They will say, "We want this independence." And that is why I am saying that we should thank the European and American people giving them valid solutions. They are very nice solutions, I mean federations, confederations, semi-confederations. But we should take into account the reality where we apply this solution.

One case says that it works very nicely in Switzerland, Austria, or even South Africa and India -- they have some elements of the federation and confederation you presented. India is a very good example in an Eastern country. Or say the Ottoman Empire gave this status policy to other ethnic minorities, highest autonomy to Jews and Arabic-speaking people in the empire. History gives very good examples. And even today we have some sort of solution, I mean the end of the solution in regard to India.

But the more you give, the more they will demand tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow. This is my problem according to my experiences. Maybe that won''t happen. But according to my experience as an internal observer to all of these events, I know as soon as Armenia would be granted autonomy, all these minorities would demand, I am sure of it. They would ask for the territory.

QUESTION: What do you mean by "cultural autonomy," practically speaking? What kind of policies would that mean? Language rights, schools? And also, could you please define "corporate federalism."

AZIMOV: "Cultural autonomy" means the development of the minorities'' language and cultural values: creating schools in their language, publishing newspapers in their language, and some other culturally-related topics of development for these ethnic groups.

"Corporate federalism" is a form of existence for more than ethnic minority groups and is different from territorial federalism. It is a sort of federalism where the rights of minorities are granted in the spheres while minorities are trying to solve their problems; I mean the problems related to ethnic minorities. Local administrative levels -- say, Nagorno-Karabagh -- can adopt laws that regulate the economic development of the area of Nagorno-Karabagh. Or they can trade with other neighbors or foreign countries. They can have relationships with consulates or foreign embassies. So this is corporate [federalism]. Definitely the territory is exploited. It is not granted, non-territorial means corporate.

It can be even poly-communal. (Inaudible) But, non-territorial, corporate federalism, I understand like this.

Incorporate -- but without any territory. You shouldn''t just cut the existing state borders. Or in that case, okay, you should just find a way to fix or reflect the new reality concerning the territorial federalism in regard to international law and international policy, because as I mentioned, many polices are old and cannot be applied. They are not correct. A lot of what has been written is not legal. (Inaudible) It is like a bible. Why should we apply old laws to the new reality? And that is why once an assessment was done, you know that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, territories are not sacrificed. So it means we can just cut it to give to some people.

But one thing is very important to know. My impression was that journalists and analysts writing on the topic are afraid of conflict. But I should mention here that conflict is a very positive thing. Even armed conflict is very positive and even war has many positive sides in the sense that conflict is a form of existence of society. It is form of human living. This is a form of development. I can give you concrete examples.

COMMENT: Peace is also a form of development.

AZIMOV: Peace also, yes. Peace is static, when you stop in the indefinite sense of the word.

COMMENT: There is a lot of conflict in peace, but not necessarily armed conflict. You can have conflict of ideas.

AZIMOV: But what I mean whenever we have ethnic identity, whenever you have self-identity. You know who we are and who they are. You can differentiate between "us" and "them." But it can bring the people very close to each other in the sense of understanding their values and historic development. Because in identity, however constructed identity is, there are some definite paradigms, unchangeable, stable. Otherwise we cannot just fix identity. How we can we say "Azeri is Azeri, Georgian is Georgian," if everything is just changing every minute? Do you understand?

COMMENT: I just wanted to comment that once the government or central government provides non-territorial autonomy to the minority ethnic group, don''t you think that people demanding more is human nature? For example, in the case of Bosnia. And there is a history of minorities in Azerbaijan. But I think that once a certain part of the land belonged to one minority, I think people stick to the territory so much. I think it is very difficult for minority or ethnic groups to give up their historical territory that they recognize.

AZIMOV: I see it like this. We should differentiate between minorities and ethnic groups. And I give just my understanding of ethnicity or ethnic identity. And it has nothing to do with territorial identity or with ethnic territorial identity in the sense that whenever we say ethnic conflict, I understand ethnic conflict only in the sense in terms when an ethnic group is denied either cultural autonomy or language. So territory is excluded [from this definition]. Whenever it is territorial, it means ethnic minority, for ethnicity has been politicized to the extent that whenever some aided groups try to use ethnic conflicts to gain their political goals. But these are two different things. And that is the mistake in the literature; saying that ethnic territorial war is interpreted as an ethnic minority problem, or say that ethnic conflict. Ethnic conflict is only the conflict with respect to the values, in respect to the historic development, in respect to the language whenever the people want some cultural autonomy to develop their language and cultural values. But this is not the problem of territory.

If we just give a piece of land to every ethnic minority, do you know how many states we would have today in the world? How many puppet states? You understand me, I think. In this sense, of course I am against territorial division. We should just differentiate them. This is not ethnic conflict in that case, because it is not the escalation of the conflict into wars.

COMMENT: Right now in Azerbaijan, so you understand it, the minister of the economy is Talysh, the minister of oil and gas is Talysh, the minister of defense is Lezgin, the prime minister''s deputy is Kurd, the minister of ecology is Lezgin. This has always been the case. I am not talking about the deputy ministers, and I am not talking about the other chiefs of departments and so on. This is a more-or-less homogenous society. In fact, no one cares what language they speak in the southern part or the northern part. This is reality. I am speaking about the cultural autonomy. I really do not understand this case; I mean to provide schools and newspapers.

During Soviet times, we had Azerbaijani schools, but no one attended these schools, because the Azerbaijani language did not provide many opportunities. Everybody attended Russian schools.

And what does it mean to "develop the language?" Language is language. The spoken language. How can you develop this language in the school? What opportunities can it give to create a Talysh school or a Lezgin school? I mean, Lezgins can better realize themselves in Azerbaijan than in Dagestan. Or Talysh are better realizing themselves in Azerbaijan rather than in Persian-speaking Iran. Therefore, I don''t see the future; I don''t see the meaning of the creation of new schools. They have folk dance; they have museums to preserve their culture and historic roots, but I don''t see any reason. There is one state language; there is one common culture. It is just a comment.

AZIMOV: Yes, I think that you didn''t catch the meaning, the major point that I was making. The problem is not in different persons, whether some Lezgin or Talysh was given a high official position in the presidency or parliament. This is not the problem of the people. This is the problem with that individual.

You wondered what it provides to the minority when a school or newspaper is opened in their language. I think that the answer is present in your comment both negatively and positively. I said from the very beginning that this Iranian language belongs to the Indo-European languages, and there is a paradigm in the cultural development. Cultures can live without a state, but not every culture can be without a state. This was my position that I was presenting here. I will repeat it: some cultures are capable of living without a state, especially Indo-European cultures in the largest sense of the word. But some other cultures cannot live without a state. They become diffused and assimilated even though all this subjugation and assimilation have been applied to these people, I mean the Talysh-speaking people. And you know that better than me. I want to say that modern states should provide policies that are ethnically blind. This is the modern civil form of a state''s existence. But our state is not ethnically blind. It is very acute in this matter.

QUESTION: What do you mean by "ethnically blind?"

AZIMOV: "Ethnically blind" means to close eyes to ethnic differentiation, while changing things, especially appointing them to the parliament to official, governmental positions. No differentiation should be made. If we are really born Azeri living together, we should not separate, "You are from the south; you are from the west; you are from the mideast." We are doing these things. And you know better than me that we are doing them. Why debate this topic? And these people, by the way, also know this. I wonder when I open several pages on this topic written by Americans, that it is very nice. But many think they know what is happening. As an objection to the existing state policy, one of objections made by American political writers is that ethnicity is given the highest place by changing the people, by accepting people to the job.

I think that Azerbaijan will find more civil forms of their people living in this land together, as Georgia should do. It should be the civil reforms of society. That is my idea, what I propose from this report and from my writings. We shouldn''t do these things in that manner, saying just to separate the people.

QUESTION: So how many urologists are there in Azerbaijan? Are all Talysh sons born as urologists? We have the chief urologist in Azerbaijan, Talysh, and therefore all urologists are from the Talysh region?

(AZIMOV AND PARTICIPANT SPEAKING SIMULTANEOUSLY)

MODERATOR: But it sounds like the question is that there seems to be a natural thing that happens in many countries, where if one person from a particular background, be it an ethnic background, or a class background, or some other background, comes into a position of power, there is a frequent tendency among people to gather people from the same background to work with them. That happens in many places.

COMMENT: It happens everywhere.

MODERATOR: It happens in many places.

COMMENT: In this hospital of urology, you come to the hospital, and from the doorkeeper, then to the nurse, and then to the doctors and the surgeons, all of them are Talysh. Isn''t it the example?

AZIMOV: I want to clarify. First of all, he is talking about a world famous doctor, an academician— he has very golden hands. The things that he is doing there, nobody can replace him there, as soon as they find some person from Nakhichevan who can do that thing, he will be immediately replaced. I am absolutely confident in that. But because they cannot find this very experienced person—

COMMENT: (Interjects) The religious leader of Azerbaijan is Talysh. All in Azerbaijan mullahs are Talysh.

AZIMOV: A mullah is a spiritual person.

COMMENT: It is common everywhere.

AZIMOV: So they give the positions in which there is no money to these people, the Talysh. Where there is money, they of course just occupy them. Coming from Aras and Nakhichevan. And the same is true in Georgia with [Edward] Shevardnadze and his team of Communists. This is also a sort of regionalism. We know about this. Communists cannot arrange the society otherwise: say openly, democratic, because [Shevardnadze] doesn''t have knowledge at that level. He is afraid of an open society with challenges and with new forces coming.

By the way, we have many parties in Azerbaijan. All these parties are from that region, Nakhichevan and Yerevan. We captured, you know, the city. Bringing all sort of (inaudible), the National Party, Independent Party of Azerbaijan.

COMMENT: That is quite different.

AZIMOV: Why different?

COMMENT: It is quite natural that I will collect to my party the people from my region or from my relatives and among my friends. What surprises you?

AZIMOV: It surprises me that Azeri people should construct a party according to the standard. They should find civil forms of party organization. See, you cannot say that only members of the Democratic Party are from the place where Clinton was born, or from the college he attended. Or Bush. Different areas, different states, no problem. I am just for that.

QUESTION: You are for that. How do you move that kind of situation? You have said that the solutions that they are suggesting, you said that as a precondition for that, you have to have growing democracy. So, one wonders what the situation is for example in Azerbaijan with respect to the existence of the preconditions. What kinds of institutions are there? Is there a growing middle class? Are there currently any preconditions that could move that society, first of all, to this first stage that you speak of -- a genuine democracy, which is a pretty tall order? And then you can come to this solution that you have an ethnic federalism, perhaps -- although I am skeptical of that as well.

So I guess my question is, what is this situation currently in Azerbaijan? What do you see as existing in Azerbaijan now? Some preconditions for moving towards that situation?

AZIMOV: I don''t see any reason for that. Even in preconditions. Preconditions should be, say, that middle class development?

COMMENT: Yes.

AZIMOV: That is nice, but I don''t know whether it is really developing in our country. We have some people belonging to the kleptocracy. The immediate problem is not how much money you have. The problem is how you earn that money: whether it is legal or moral. This is my problem that I am talking about. I will never believe that people are doing business here or in Switzerland, England, or France like our people are doing, or Russians are doing in Russia.

But what concerns you regarding democracy, we know both the weak side of democracy and the strong side. We cannot find a third variant to replace this democracy. If we had a third element which is better than this democracy that we have today -- which we don''t have -- that is okay. But we should go to the democracy. But with this team, we cannot go to democracy.

QUESTION: So you are pessimistic for at least the short term?

AZIMOV: In that regard, I am pessimistic, again pointing to my experience. Elchibey came to power. What was his policy? I talked to him face to face. We met five times, because I wanted to get access to his level. To find out what sort of president we had. By the way, I lent my voice and asked my relatives to help him to become the president. He became the president. His policy was that we are all Turkish, not Turkic. As soon as he said this, all the minorities were hurt and offended. That is why [people] took back all the artillery and the weapons from Nagorno-Karabagh, and said that we just throw you away. Of course you know that Russia had their hands there. We know about that. That policy was very dangerous geopolitically for Russia. You know that. The more Azerbaijan leaned towards Turkey, the further away from Russia it became. That was not acceptable from a geopolitical standpoint for the regional players and internationally dominant actors. By the way, much depends on how these international actors behave themselves in the region. It depends on them too.

QUESTION: You mean development of democracy and its solutions?

AZIMOV: Yes.

FOLLOW UP: What can outsiders do?

AZIMOV: I mean regional players. Say that Abkhazian conflict and the Armenian conflict - It is known that they were created by Russia. It was the time when anti-Soviet feelings had grown and developed into anti-Russian feelings. As soon as they heard about this, they immediately cut them off. They were the initiators to oust Elchibey. In Georgia -- where they invited Shevardnadze -- and in Azerbaijan, they wanted to give the power to those with whom they could have a common language.

This is an example of a regional player not behaving at the level that we would wish to see. We can also point to an example in Iran. Iran threatens to propagate all sorts of Islamic models of developments. They are just pretending to all sorts of Caspian sectors. I didn''t mention all of these examples because much has been said about them. But Iran wants, of course, the oil pipeline to go through Tabriz. By the way, you know that it is not too expensive in comparison to Baku-Ceyhan. At the same time, geopolitically, the business people and Westerners are thinking, "Baku-Ceyhan is good, better than Tabriz." The National Front is still defending the argument that the pipeline should go through Tabriz.

But concerning democracy, I would say that democracy can be whenever the preconditions are present. I do not see the preconditions. In the society, whenever people are robbing from the state, there can be no democracy. It would be democracy of plutocracy.

What is the ideal level? We also have a normative level of democracy, we have the practical level. The level of implementation of democracy. These are two different things. Azerbaijan belongs to neither part.

The same can be said about Kyrgyzstan. Reading an article written by an American professor, it said, "Kyrgyzstan is a good example of democracy." I laughed out loud. It was very nice to learn this. What sort of democracy can be there? Democracy is in highly developed civilized countries. Because civilization is very important. I guess that people say, "If we just heal the economy, people would be happy. The country would be developing. Its morals would be healthy." Yes you are right.

So before changing this society into the ugly, shameful democratic society, the economy even in this case according to Max Weber is not so important. I agree with you. It is important that we reorganize ourselves morally. That is the precondition of democratic development in this society.

MODERATOR: Kazim, thank you very much for your presentation and for explaining some of the complicated and different aspects of ethnic conflict. It is helpful for us to hear the many different views and different information.