Warning: This is a rush transcript generated automatically and may contain errors.
Asbed: Hello everyone and welcome to this Conversations on Groong episode. Today we’re talking with Hrair Balian, an international lawyer who has practiced conflict resolution in the Middle East, the Caucasus, Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia. You’ll hear more about those later. He has served in leadership positions with the UN, the OSCE, ODIHR, NGOs, including the Carter Center.
His latest book, Anatomy of Peacemaking: Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict and Missed Opportunities, came out earlier this year in 2026. So we’ll discuss that and the upcoming parliamentary elections in Armenia before opportunities there are missed as well.
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Asbed: Hrair Balian, welcome to the Groong Podcast.
Hovik: Thank you. Welcome, Mr. Balian, and thank you for accepting our invite. It’s a pleasure, really.
Yeah, yeah. Mutually, and I would say the pleasure is ours. Your reputation precedes you in a good way, obviously, but for those who are not aware of your work, can you introduce yourself essentially to our audience?
Hrair: Sure. I’m a lawyer by training, but a political activist by choice. All my life I’ve been a political activist starting where I was born in Beirut, and continued to do so in the US when I moved to the US, became a student activist, anti-war activist, etc, etc. And then I went to law school and tried to, I went to law school basically to do conflict resolution with my training.
I practiced law, domestic American law, for five, six years and then quickly I moved on to conflict zones and start working in conflict zones and trying to do conflict resolution, mediation, negotiation. I started, I cut my teeth basically in the Caucasus, in the South Caucasus and North Caucasus, in Armenia and in Karabakh.
In North Caucasus, I worked in Chechnya, in Ingushetia and Ossetia, North Ossetia. and then moved on to other places in Europe, the Balkans, Eastern Europe, Middle East, Central Asia and Africa and ended up coming back to the US in 2008 to work for former President Jimmy Carter and to head his negotiation and mediation conflict resolution team here in Atlanta so and I finally retired four years ago and retired quote unquote four years ago and dedicated my time three years to write my book on the conflict and
Hovik: why it failed Mr Balian you recently published your I would say a monumental book called Anatomy of Peacemaking the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict and Missed Opportunities. Now we will talk about that later in the show, but I want to just let our audience know that that will be a topic and we will include the link to the show notes.
Asbed: Yeah, so let’s dive directly into our first topic, which is Iran. And for a change, Hrair, I do not want to litigate all the tactical stuff of the war, what bomb fell where and who made it and stuff like that. Let’s talk about the larger picture of the relationship between the two countries, or as it is more fashionable these days to say the two civilizations because if war is the continuation of politics by other means then it means that somewhere along the way diplomacy failed and war began on Iran. Did modern U.S.-Iran relations start in 1979 or 1953 or when and why?
Because right now the general narrative that we hear in America is that they chant death to America so they’re enemies.
Hrair: Well, first of all, the war against Iran is not an American war. America came in reluctantly in that war. It is really an Israeli-Iranian war. It is a war that Israel launched against Iran.
Israel has been wanting to start this war since the early 2000s, more specifically after 2009 when Netanyahu became Prime Minister of Israel. Since then, Israel has been trying to convince the US to join to join it on a war against Iran because Israel could not have succeeded in that war, especially at the time. Finally, Netanyahu was able to convince Trump to start a war last year, a brief one last year in June 2025. It was that war ended inconclusively and then Israel and the US the US jointly attacked Iran in the middle of negotiations both times last year and this time.
Iran was engaged in good faith negotiations with the US when both last year and this year the wars started. Israel had a clear aim, goal in this war that was to destroy Iran as a state and to fragment Iran into smaller components so that it would not be a conceived threat against Israel. The US got pulled in without having its own goals to pursue in Iran and depending on who you talk to in the US, who was expressing views in the US, the goals were either to remove the nuclear capacity of Iran or to effectuate a regime change in Iran.
Neither one of these purposes were accomplished and basically Iran proved that it is capable of resisting two world powers. And yes, indeed, Israel has become a world power thanks to the American assistance. So Iran was able to resist two world powers. Perhaps one would be exaggerated to say Iran won, but at the very least, Iran was not defeated in this war.
Asbed: Of course, we know that in the last couple of weeks there’s been Islamabad talks, but essentially I think they have failed. And it’s sort of depressing to say that because I’m not sure where things are going to go from here. Iran is working diplomatic channels through Islamabad and Moscow, essentially, trying to make new proposals to stave off a restart of the war. But Trump doesn’t seem to be at best lukewarm.
I mean, he’s been putting out some very cartoonish Truth Social posts saying that he rejects it and he’s had enough talk. But what’s your outlook for a negotiated solution to the present state of the conflict? Where do we go from here?
Hrair: Look, when you don’t have diplomats involved in these negotiations, you have basically real estate magnates and negotiators involved in a political, very, very complex political negotiation with Iran. The results of these negotiations do not surprise me. Again, not even the Secretary of State is involved in these negotiations. You cannot, I mean, remember what happened that happened when the JCPOA was negotiated 10 years ago during the Obama administration.
The Secretary of State then, John Kerry, was involved, Robert Malley, another diplomat, very experienced diplomat, was involved, and many others. The whole Department of State was involved, and the National Security Council was involved in the negotiation. This time, you have two amateur diplomats, amateur, and I underline that, involved in the negotiations. So, frankly, I don’t expect the negotiations to get anywhere.
So far, we’ve seen maximalist demands from the US side. Israel is not even involved in the negotiation, except in the back channels, most likely in the background. until and unless the U.S. defines precisely what it wants from these negotiations and involves diplomats and listens to the other side, we’re not going to see negotiations bring results. Possibly we may end up in a neither-war-nor-peace situation with Iran. That seems to be the trend lately in international negotiations, but I doubt we’re going to have a peace agreement between the US and Iran.
Asbed: You said that currently in the negotiations, Israel is not part of it. It’s really US and Iran. Either there’s stuff under the covers or interests between the US and Israel have diverged. Have their interests remained the same or have they gone such a separate way that Israel is not needed on the table anymore?
Hrair: Look, there were never aims that the US and Israel shared in this war. As I said earlier, Israel was pursuing the destruction of Iran, despite what they’re saying in terms of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. against the central government, against Tehran, and they miserably failed in that because the Kurds are hopelessly divided in Iran and elsewhere. to get Azerbaijan involved in an uprising. The Azeris in Iran involved in an uprising against Iran and that failed also. They’ve been trying to do that for some time and they failed in that as well.
The American goals in Iran, again, were varying depending on the time and person that one discusses with. So Israel and the US never shared common goals in this war against Iran and they still do not share.
Asbed: Your comments on Azerbaijan give me a good segue to the next section of this, which is right across the Araks River on the northern border of Iran into Armenia, where there is this project called TRIPP, the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity. It’s also known by the Turks and the Azeris as the Zangezur Corridor. This is a project that Pashinyan is selling after his defeat and concessions to Azerbaijan as a regionally beneficial initiative, his so-called crossroads of peace, which strengthens Armenia’s security, as he says. The TRIPP, however, appears to be crossing red lines of Iran’s national security.
And they’ve always said if they cross the red line, there will be interference. So is this TRIPP project, some kind of a security guarantee for Armenia’s sovereignty?
Hrair: Okay, you’ve said a lot there, and let’s try to unpack this whole issue. First, I am not a Trump fan, never been, never will be. But we have to acknowledge that Trump’s involvement and the TRIPP proposal at the very least postponed the possibility of war in southern Armenia. You may remember last year in March we were expecting an imminent Azerbaijani attack in southern Armenia to take over territory so that they can create this so-called Zangezur Corridor, about which they’ve been talking for ages.
Now, the only thing that put aside for a while at least, temporarily, at least, at the very least, this attack was Trump’s involvement in the TRIPP proposal. Okay, now the TRIPP is an unfinished business at this point. It is a work in progress. I cannot say whether or not the TRIPP beyond temporarily postponing the possibility of war in the South.
Beyond that, I cannot say whether or not TRIPP is a positive or a negative addition to Armenian and Azerbaijani politics. The details are not known. The details have not been worked out. Some details have started to come in, but we are far from knowing what needs to be known about TRIPP before we can decide whether or not this is a beneficial addition to Armenia or a peril to Armenia.
Armenia is in negotiations with the US. Armenia is most likely in negotiations with Azerbaijan and Turkey on the same issue as well. The roads, the railroads, gas and oil, possible gas and oil pipelines to go through southern Armenia. But most importantly, we don’t know the details of what this TRIPP road, the 43 kilometers on Armenian sovereign territory represent in terms of the so-called middle corridor that has the potential of bringing Armenia into a more international route connecting China and Central Asia with Europe through the North Caucasus as well as the South Caucasus, namely Armenia.
So there is a lot more to be to unpack about the TRIPP before we can decide whether or not this is a beneficial or perilous adventure for Armenia. Now, the war on Iran has added new risk factors for the TRIPP. Even before the war, both Russia and Iran had expressed opposition to the TRIPP idea. Russia much more cautiously than Iran, and in Iran, depending on which Part of the government you talk to the IRGC were opposed to it, the political side, the presidency expressed more sympathy towards a TRIPP.
Now, I think the calculations are all off again and need to be reconsidered as to whether or not Iran and Russia will oppose the TRIPP idea. And that would depend on how the US uses the whole TRIPP idea, whether the US uses it as a weapon to keep Iran and Russia out of the South Caucasus, and thus turn Armenia into a football in the struggle between the East and West or more of an economic project as part of the Middle Corridor. There’s a lot of unknowns about TRIPP at this point.
Asbed: Sometimes I wonder if we’re the football or the field, but we’re certainly not players.
Hovik: We’re certainly not. Exactly. Well, on that point, first, given what we know so far, you said there are a lot of unknowns but we know that Armenia has agreed to 99-year lease and during the first 49 years of that or 50 years of that it has a minority stake and all of it is in the hands of the US so and there’s some ambiguity I mean it seems like the US could sell its stake to any entity it wants At the same time, I’m worried about future U.S. governments essentially coming in and undoing what Trump did or liquidating its interests. What do you think is the risk of that given if a Democratic, let’s say, government takes power?
Hrair: Despite the immodest naming the road after President Trump, I think the TRIPP has U.S. interests in sight. Despite the name, I think future governments, unless this war changes everything, future U.S. governments, Democratic government, for example, is likely to continue the TRIPP idea perhaps by renaming it something else which is really unimportant what the name is again depending on the details to be worked out. Yes, the US has maintained, retained 76% interest in the TRIPP Corporation and Armenia has 24% for the first 49 years after that to be renegotiated.
I question also the minority, very small minority interest of Armenia. in this project. I wonder if it would not have been possible to have higher ownership rights in the corporation Again, the details of how the TRIPP will be used will be very, very important. Just yesterday, for the first time, we saw some figures being discussed as to the economic benefit that TRIPP could bring to Armenia, and I heard the figure 1.1, 1.2 billion dollars annually. revenues, additional revenues to Armenia.
Now I don’t know the details of this either it was a figure that that was discussed by I think Armenian officials but I’m not sure about that where I heard the the information so again it comes down to details really and In working out the details, the ownership rights, and what kind of security presence would be on the route, I think it behooves the Armenian government to be extremely cautious and mindful of other interests in the region before it agrees to the details.
Hovik: Speaking of the other interests in the region, can I just quickly add, there is the November 2020 statement which assigns control of the corridor to Russia. Now that is an obvious conflict with TRIPP. How do you see that resolving?
Hrair: Okay, the November 9th trilateral agreement that you are referring to was a ceasefire agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan signed under the auspices of the Russian Federation and President Putin. That ceasefire agreement is null and void. Null and void.
The main subject of that ceasefire agreement, Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, no longer exists. one of the main provisions of that ceasefire agreement the presence of Russian peacekeeping forces in Nagorno-Karabakh no longer exists so when the main subject matter of a ceasefire agreement of any agreement is no longer around the agreement as such is null and void so the November 9 agreement its ninth article which deals with the Zangezur Corridor no longer is a factor
Hovik: You said it’s unclear what kind of security components this would take, but one of the opposition groups in Armenia essentially has embraced the TRIPP with a caveat that they would negotiate security guarantees as part of it. I’m talking about Strong Armenia and their position on this. To me, this Honestly, this sounds a very crazy idea because we’re not just talking about now a commercial enterprise, we’re talking about security presence and the narrative we hear is that, you know, they could bring in regional actors and somehow all of them can collaborate on ensuring the security of the TRIPP and Armenia’s south.
How do you envision any additional security guarantees on top of what we know so far and that seems to be increasing the pressure on Iran to act and how would Iran perceive this?
Hrair: Look, the TRIPP was never a purely commercial idea, commercial enterprise. It was much more than commercial. Commercial including very important component of commercial considerations, but it was a political security arrangement in the region. As such, again, the security arrangements around TRIPP have not been detailed.
There are no details known about it. So Strong Armenia’s suggestion that the security arrangements should be negotiated or renegotiated, I think it’s a good idea. It should be on the table. And all issues, concerns should be taken into consideration before finalizing the TRIPP.
Hovik: Okay.
Asbed: Right, another group the Hayastan Dashink’s Robert Kocharyan actually former president has suggested that the TRIPP actually needs to be expanded. Instead of being 43 kilometers through Armenia, it should be something over 200 kilometers that includes Nakhichevan and parts of southern Azerbaijan. And he basically meant for all of that to be secured by America and for Azerbaijan to have as much skin in it as Armenia is putting. What do you think about this?
Does this idea have merit?
Hrair: It does have merit, yes. In the TRIPP memorandum signed in August in Washington by Trump, Aliyev, and Pashinyan, there is a provision that is being ignored so far. No one has mentioned it. The provision is the following. that Armenia should have, in addition to TRIPP, Armenia should have reciprocal rights with respect to transit rights through Azerbaijan, whether it’s through or through mainland Azerbaijan to connect with even with southern armenia yerevan connecting with southern armenia through or yerevan connecting with russia through mainland azerbaijan there are provisions for reciprocal rights.
However There has been absolutely no reference to these reciprocal rights since the TRIPP memorandum was signed by the three leaders last August. It seems people are ignoring it now. Yes, Armenia has received petrol and wheat through Azerbaijan. But that is not as a result of an agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
It’s just a goodwill gesture from Azerbaijan.
Hovik: And Georgia, because they are not charging taxes.
Hrair: I’m not talking about Georgia because Georgia is not an enemy state. Azerbaijan is an enemy state. Goodwill gestures are not worth much from an enemy country. Okay, it’s a good confidence-building measure, but we cannot rely on that. has to be part of an agreement, and the agreement has to be based on these reciprocal rights that the TRIPP memorandum includes, but no one is talking about it today, except now that you mentioned, yes, the Kocharyan party has referenced that.
Asbed: Hrair, so what lessons should Armenia take from all of this experience since the Iran War and TRIPP and the upheaval of its possible future? How should Armenia prepare for, let’s say, the end of the war in Iran? First,
Hrair: remember about, what was it now, 30-some years ago, when Armenia experienced a devastating earthquake, how the entire diaspora stood up and helped Armenia, tried to help Armenia. The diaspora is in very difficult situation today as a result of the Iran War and the Lebanon War. Let’s not forget it’s not just a war against Iran, it’s a war against Lebanon as well. Our most important two and oldest communities, diaspora communities in Iran and Lebanon are in need.
Has the Armenian government lifted a finger to help these diaspora communities? why that’s the first thing Armenian government needs to do help the diaspora Armenian communities in a time of dire need help them that’s the first thing they need to do second Armenia needs to take into consideration what is going on in the neighborhood and take defensive deterrent actions accordingly. Now perhaps they’re doing, perhaps I hope they’re doing, that we are not aware of it. I for one am not aware of what Armenia is doing to deter the possible negative impact of the war on Iran against Armenia. The negative impact could be could take many forms.
One form could be that Turkey, in an attempt to prevent Iranian refugees from flooding Turkey like they did during the Syrian civil war, could create a buffer zone in northern Iran. I’m not saying that I’ve seen any discussion or plans in this direction, but we should learn from past experience what Turkey has done in Syria during a civil war And in case there is a civil war in Iran, this could be a possibility. What could Armenia do to prevent the consequences of such a move from Turkey into northern Iran? Armenia has an important commercial as well as strategic route through Iran to the Gulf, the Persian, the Arab Gulf.
If that is closed, I think Armenia would be in trouble. What can we do? What can we do to prevent such a thing? So those are the two things that need to be taken into account by the Armenian government.
Hovik: Okay, Mr. Balian, let’s talk about your book. As we said, it is titled The Anatomy of Peacemaking, Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict and Missed Opportunities. We will include the link in the show notes and the video descriptions.
Honestly, when looking at it, it is such a detailed work that is difficult for us to… For me specifically, I tried reading it before… Before this recording and I could only read like, you know, parts of one chapter, unfortunately. But can you tell us when you had this idea to do it?
What led you to take on this endeavor and the process that you went through?
Hrair: First, there is also the Armenian version of the book. Congratulations on that as well. The English was published in February and the Armenian in April. I was in Armenia the last month, mostly, most of the month of April for the book launch events, interviews and lectures and discussions in Yerevan.
The idea for the book came to me about a little more than three years ago. When the risk of losing Karabakh was, Artsakh was very, very high. Artsakh was under blockade already, complete blockade by Azerbaijan. The Lachin Corridor was closed and and we were wondering what, if anything, could be done at the 11th hour to prevent an imminent Azerbaijani assault, a second assault in three years against Karabakh and what I feared then was the ethnic cleansing, complete ethnic cleansing of the Armenians from Karabakh.
That’s when the idea came to me and I started looking into what, if anything, could be done And then once Artsakh fell in September of the year 2023, I turned my research into a book idea and I started delving really deeply into writing this book. It took me three years to write the book. I finished it at the end of 2025, two and a half years to write the book. I finished it at the end of 2025.
It was published in February, as I said, in the English language, the original, and then we translated it also. We started translation back in November, and the translation was ready for publication in April of this year. So this is where it came from, and there you have it.
Hovik: I mean just looking at the sources section of your book it is more than 20 pages and you specify that is not that is not an exhaustive list can you tell us what sources you did consult and which ones maybe you didn’t and I’m also talking about some agreements that until now are still not disclosed so I think parts of Key West aren’t so how did how did those gaps in the documentation affect your work?
Hrair: The book is based, first of all, on archives that I researched in Armenia, archives that the OSCE has kept public. Some of it, some of the documents are still secret, are not released to the public. After I had finished the book, new archives became public at the beginning of December. Last year I reopened the whole file and completed some of the sections that were missing key documents, but the documents that were released last December were very selective.
Some of the documents are still secret, the ones you mentioned, Key West, the 1999 agreement that President Kocharyan and President Heydar Aliyev had worked out. That is not public yet. I know there is a document, but it is not public. The Americans, I looked into the State Department archives and a lot of the memoranda, internal memoranda after 25 years were made public.
A lot more were made public. Illegally, shall we say.
Asbed: Yes. What is the reason why these things are not made public? Because not making them public gives rise to conspiracies on both sides. You know, we’ve heard forever that Key West meant that Kocharyan was swapping Meghri with Artsakh and stuff like that.
And today those topics are very relevant. So why keep all this stuff secret?
Hovik: And also, if I may add, the Pashinyan regime says that they have released everything in their possession. How credible is that statement?
Hrair: No, they have not. They have not released everything they have. Look, it’s a very good question you ask, Asbed, that often diplomatic negotiations, negotiations around conflict, must be kept confidential until some agreements have been reached. Otherwise, partial proposals, partial agreements can be abused by one side or the other or both sides. against each other, making accusation against each other.
But at some point, parts of agreement must be released to bring the people along, the leaders, so that eventually the people would accept mutual concessions. So this was handled in a masterful way during the Northern Ireland negotiations in the late 1990s. The mediator at the time was George Mitchell, who became my boss at the International Crisis Group at the time when I was working for the International Crisis Group in Sarajevo, heading their mission in Sarajevo for three years.
Now they handle this secrecy and confidentiality of negotiations very well, releasing parts of documents, releasing what could be released, what had already been agreed between the parties, even though an overall agreement had not been reached yet. There was no reason in the Karabakh case, Karabakh negotiations case, the Minsk Group negotiation case that this kind of actions could not have been taken and those parts of agreements could have been released.
And specifically now 25, 30 years after the negotiations, Three years after, almost three years after Karabakh fell completely and was cleansed ethnically, there’s no reason why archives and documents should not be released. The Pashinyan government in December released very selectively some documents, for example, the 2019 Lavrov and Minsk Group proposals made to us which they were denying for years. Finally they released it and now we find out what a good proposal that was which we rejected almost a year after the proposal was made to Armenia and Azerbaijan. Yes, this should be it.
Research was based on the proposals, archives, the State Department, Armenian OSCE archives, but also discussions and interviews with people who took part in the negotiations, former presidents, former foreign ministers, former diplomats, analysts who were working on this issue as the situation was evolving and and the negotiations were maturing through the years and decades since it started back in 1992. Right.
Hovik: So why do you think the Pashinyan government is not releasing it? Is it politically motivated? Are there other parties against that?
Hrair: I don’t want to guess why you know I don’t have a crystal ball I cannot guess why the government is not releasing anything and I don’t want to speculate frankly simply by bad-mouthing the government all I can say is that the documents should be released now there’s no reason in this earth under the sun why a document negotiated in 1999 between Kocharyan and Aliyev. A document negotiated in 2001 in Key West between Kocharyan and Aliyev could not be released.
We’ve seen tons of articles on this issue published. tons of supposed archives leaks but they’re not really genuine until it is released officially. by the OSCE and at least the Armenian government, if not also by the Azerbaijanis. At the time, Azerbaijani government released more secret documents in 1997 in particular than the Armenian government had done. So to cut it short, there’s no reason why the documents should not be released now.
Hovik: Yeah. All right. Well, I want to focus the rest of our discussion on one specific chapter of your book, Chapter 8, which talks about why these peace talks failed. You inventory a very long list of factors that contributed to the outcome.
The key takeaway though that I got was that failure is guaranteed when there is internal mistrust between the parties involved and also a lack of unity or will of outside powers. But if you had to pick only three of those factors, which were the biggest contributors to the failure of the Nagorno-Karabakh peace talks?
Hrair: Give us your take. I have identified nine reasons why the negotiations failed in my book in chapter eight that you mentioned. In my view, the most important reason why we failed was our maximalism, both sides’ maximalism, both Azerbaijan and Armenia’s maximalist approach to negotiations. Negotiations always start, whether it’s commercial negotiations for a contract or political negotiations or war negotiations.
The sides always start from maximalist positions, knowing that they can present their maximalist positions. At some point, they will start to chip away from the maximalist position and make concessions, hopefully mutual concessions, what we call in Armenian “pokhzichum”. If you don’t make concessions and stick to your maximalist positions, you’re given a message that you don’t want to negotiate. And if you give that message, you better have an alternative solution to the conflict.
An alternative way to accomplish what you’re trying to accomplish.
Hovik: Right?
Hrair: We call this BATNA, in conflict resolution terminology, better alternative to a negotiated agreement. BATNA.
Okay, Azerbaijan stuck to its maximalist position and kept in mind war and the use of force as its BATNA better alternative to negotiated agreement Armenia said that time is on its side and it seems Armenia’s BATNA was time which eventually worked against it not in its favor because Azerbaijan was preparing for war Azerbaijan was preparing for the 21st century war with drones and satellites and AI and everything else and we were still preparing at best we were preparing for a 20th century war and we failed in that war in 2020 so reason number one maximalist position keeping maximalist positions in our negotiations reason number two not having a viable credible BATNA, meaning better alternative to negotiated agreement.
Two reasons. Third reason, in 2019 and 2020, the Armenian government, a populist government, a government that came to power through populist movement, used all sorts of provocative rhetoric and actions to irritate the heck out of Azerbaijan and Turkey and to give Azerbaijan and Turkey the modus vivendi to start the war, to resort to war. And I’ll give you a few examples of what I’m talking about, provocative rhetoric and actions. Even if the Karabakh negotiations gave Karabakh its final status and Karabakh’s final status, independence, were recognized by the international community.
We would not return the occupied territories around Karabakh. What does this mean? If you are an Azerbaijani leader or a Turkish leader, what would it mean to you? That you don’t want to negotiate.
Negotiations are useless. So war is justified. That would be the message you get. When Armenian leaders declare, next, when Armenian leaders declare that the Treaty of Sèvres is still applicable to the current situation, if you were Turkey, what would you think?
Asbed: Territorial demands.
Hrair: Territorial demands. And that’s exactly what Turkey took from the message and said we are now party to this war.
Asbed: That was early September of 2020. Correct.
Hrair: Correct. Should I continue?
Asbed: On the 100th anniversary of the Treaty of Sèvres.
Hovik: No, it’s early spring, in the spring. Yes. In the spring.
Hrair: Several times. The message was transmitted several times by various Armenian leaders, including the president at the time, and Karabakh leaders as well. If you know the importance of Shushi to Azerbaijan, culturally, It’s very important for us as well, culturally. But the importance of Shushi.
Would you announce that you will move the seat of the Nagorno-Karabakh parliament to Shushi from Stepanakert? Right? And I can continue. I have listed in my book 13 provocative actions and rhetoric that the Armenian leaders both in Armenia and used to provoke this war.
Reason number three for the failure of negotiations. Azerbaijan finally was convinced that war is its only option to get back and not negotiations useless. Negotiations were useless. That was the message they got from us. and I can continue on and on.
Another reason is for all three Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders, by all three I mean Aliyev, Armenian leaders in Armenia and Armenian leaders in Karabakh did not prepare their populations for concessions. Always gave the message to their populations, we don’t need to make concessions, we will have 100% of what we’re demanding without concessions, both sides. Also the Minsk group mediators, didn’t prepare the population for concessions of the three territories for concessions. When you don’t prepare the populations for concessions, when the leaders finally make concessions, the people revolt against the leaders.
Asbed: Hrair, I have a question on this. Is it inappropriate for, for example, in this case, the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs to make statements like this in both countries? Or is it exclusively the domain of the leaders of the countries to make those statements?
Hrair: It is the domain of the leaders, but also the mediators must train. and also demand from the leaders of the three territories to explain to their populations that eventually, if they want a peaceful resolution to the conflict, eventually they will have to make concessions, mutual concessions.
Hovik: Mr. Balian, let’s talk about another reason that you so far haven’t mentioned. Now, there was this report from the Rand Corporation in 2019 called Extending Russia, which explicitly talks about different ways it could piss off Russia and make life very bad for Russia across the region. And for the South Caucasus, which is, I think, one of the seven action items, it says that the US should exploit tensions, and I’m quoting that, I believe, semi-accurately, in the South Caucasus and in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in order to put more pressure on Russia.
In fact, you in your book talk about Russia’s growing weakness and preoccupation with Ukraine as one of the contributors to this conflict. So especially in 2014 or 2018, which one do you think for the United States because you know global powers are important in this conflict so for the United States in 2018 which one was more important for for them was it to resolve this conflict or make life really bad if even if it comes at the cost of sacrificing you know Nagorno-Karabakh
Hrair: There’s a lot of multiple questions in your comment. It raises multiple questions, your comment. First of all, it is extremely difficult mediating a conflict, even when you have a single mediator. In our case, we had three mediators across the geopolitical divides.
Russia, the US, and France, basically on behalf of the EU. So you had three geopolitical rivals who were mediating the conflict in the Minsk Group co-chair process. Up until 2000-something, and I cannot precisely say what exact year, Up until 2000 something, the three mediators worked harmoniously with each other, trying to find a find a solution to the Karabakh conflict because they all had interest in bringing peace to this region so that the gas and oil and other resources could be used by the West as well as the East. I mean, I’m oversimplifying a bit, thanks, but you get the idea.
They work harmoniously. But after 2007, 2008, after the Madrid principles were proposed harmoniously, jointly together, the three co-chairs started, the rivalry between the co-chairs started becoming problematic. and they started working less and less harmoniously on the Karabakh conflict and they start working cross purposes in the negotiation process. So this was another reason for the failure of the negotiations after 2007-2008 period. Geopolitics obviously played a role.
The U.S. interest, when you read some of the White House and State Department cables, confidential cables released and released by WikiLeaks, when you read the cables, you see a tension always between the U.S.’s wish to act as a neutral mediator and the U.S.’s interests, U.S. companies, commercial companies’ interests, in the oil and gas of Azerbaijan. President Aliyev, Father Aliyev, would be discussing with the US president the negotiation process and the need to bring peace to the region, et cetera, et cetera.
And half an hour later would be meeting with the US president and US companies from Texas, lobbying the US president to give preferential treatment to Azerbaijan in this commercial deals etc etc the only thing that kept the US let’s say in an honest quote-unquote honest line in this negotiation was the presence of the Armenian diaspora in the US and the role that the Armenian diaspora plays in pressuring the State Department and the White House to keep a neutral stance with respect to Azerbaijan and Armenia negotiations. So geopolitics has a huge role in the negotiation process and that’s one of the reasons why the negotiations failed.
I don’t know if I answered your question, maybe I diverted.
Hovik: Yeah, I think that you answered it in general, but I wanted to know, essentially, was there a point where the US said, you know, screw Karabakh, we’re just going to turn this into a matter of contention with Russia, and specifically, maybe it was completely, to those who think that way, The 2020 war was a welcome development because it allowed them to then implement all these policies that are happening today, including the TRIPP.
Hrair: You know, I think your question is valid, but we’d be guessing.
Hovik: Yeah.
Hrair: We’d be guessing as to whether or not that’s the case. I’ve heard all sorts of rumors. I’ve read all sorts of papers and thesis on whether or not both Europe and the US, in particular the US, wanted the Karabakh question out of the way, and they allowed the ethnic cleansing to take place. But we’re speculating, we’re guessing, and I refuse to do that.
Hovik: Okay. Now, in 2021, Pashinyan Retained power in what I would say were questionable elections. The opposition questioned the results at the time. And his term expires this year.
Now, in his program into 2021, he not only promised to negotiate a better future for Artsakh, but he even talked about de-occupation of Shushi and Hadrut. Quite a shift, I guess now, but In 2022, suddenly, Pashinyan officially recognized Artsakh as belonging to Azerbaijan.
Asbed: Which precipitated September 2023, essentially.
Hovik: Yeah, I mean, it precipitated the blockade and September 2023.
Asbed: The ethnic cleansing and everything.
Hovik: Yeah.
Hrair: It gave the green light.
Hovik: So how do you explain this?
Hrair: Well, I’ve written an article on this subject that Pashinyan’s gratuitous gift of Karabakh to Azerbaijan was uncalled for, was not necessary. In other words, Armenia and Azerbaijan could recognize each other’s territory integrity in which Karabakh was not part of Azerbaijan. Karabakh split from Azerbaijan in 91 when Azerbaijan was still, had not yet declared independence, was part of the Soviet Union and Karabakh. In my book, I talk about four republics emerging from the Soviet Union in the South Caucasus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.
Hovik: Okay?
Hrair: So yeah, I mean there’s a whole series of arguments one can make as to why Karabakh was not part of Azerbaijan when Azerbaijan became independent and how Karabakh split from Azerbaijan using its right to self-determination legally.
Now the point is that the international community used the right to self-determination and international law in general arbitrarily when you compare the two situations of Karabakh and Kosovo both autonomous regions within a republic of a federation socialist communist socialist federation okay the federation falling apart And the international and human rights violations, both in Karabakh and Kosovo, war in Karabakh and Kosovo, and then the international community comes in and recognizes the Kosovo independence, but not the Karabakh independence.
This is an arbitrary application of international law principles, which is one of the reasons also, reasons four, five, six, whatever it’s been now, the count of reasons why the Karabakh negotiations failed.
Asbed: Hrair, given the current situation that we have right now, is the Artsakh chapter actually closed in our history? And if not, what does that mean in reality?
Hrair: Look, it is not up to me or you or the Armenian government to close the Artsakh chapter. The only people who can close the Artsakh chapter, and that’s the people from Nagorno-Karabakh. The people who have been displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh. And to my knowledge, they have not closed the issue.
Hovik: Okay. Hrair, so talking about the elections in Armenia, if the A lot of international media is presenting this as some kind of a fair process. They’re not talking about any irregularities. Yet, if elections are seen as not only what happens on voting precincts in the day of the election, but all the events preceding it, Many analysts would say that the elections actually would lead to questionable results.
There are instances of arrests of the opposition members, wide-scale surveillance for any minor infiltration that people are being arrested. We know about the church leadership in jail right now. Last week the OSCE ODIHR, ODIHR, announced that it will deploy a team of monitors to observe the elections. Last week I think we talked to Philippe Raffi Kalfayan from the IODA, International Observatory for Democracy in Armenia.
And from that discussion, I got the sense that the final report, not what the election monitors do on the ground, but the final report prepared by the political leadership in OSCE would be more influenced by politics and this dialogue of, you know, let’s keep Pashinyan in power because he’s a peace candidate than the facts of the elections themselves. So we know you have a long history of doing election monitoring, especially with ODIHR. Given your experience in many of these organizations, is there any truth to the argument that this is Let me say it this way.
The final report of the OSCE observers is already pre-written and it says free and fair.
Hrair: That’s not correct. Look, between 1998 and 2003, I was the head of the OSCE electoral department and I deployed all these missions. I deployed about 70 missions in five years in various countries of the former Soviet Union, former Yugoslavia, Eastern Europe, etc. including to Armenia and Azerbaijan at the time. At the time, since I am an Armenian, I did not want to leave the impression of any kind of a bias.
So whenever a mission was deployed to Armenia or Azerbaijan, I withdrew myself from directing that mission and allowed other people to do that job. Now, the OSCE or the election observation missions have been very credible missions all along. I don’t know what they do now, I don’t know how they do it now, but all along they’ve been credible. Since my tenure ended in 2003, a whole number of electoral missions were deployed to Armenia and Azerbaijan.
And I can say without exception, they have all been very credible reports. They have produced credible reports. Now, other organizations taking part in election observation missions have produced very biased reports, I agree, but not the OSCE ODIHR missions. They have been very credible.
And I expect the same thing to be done this time around, and I assure you the final report has not been written.
Hovik: Okay, and given what you know, given what you’ve already seen, do you think that these elections have a chance to be free and fair? And why aren’t they talking about it now? Why aren’t they raising this issue now? And is that also a matter of politics?
Hrair: I don’t know if ODIHR has raised the issue at this point. I have not seen anything from ODIHR announcing free and fair or otherwise for the Armenian elections. Some part of the observation are taking place as we speak today, as soon as they started deploying. And even before, research on the laws under which the election takes place in Armenia, the constitution, etc., etc.
So some parts of it may be written, but not the conclusions, not the conclusions. In other words, the analysis of the laws under which the elections are taking place can be done now except the election day events. So I cannot tell what their conclusion will be, but the report is not written.
My conclusion from observing so far the campaign for the past year and the erosion of democracy in Armenia which is a very very concerning matter for me and many other people there is indeed an erosion of democracy in Armenia starting with the state church business, unfair treatment of the church, interference, unconstitutional interference of the state in church affairs, the arrests of political people, Samvel Karapetyan to start with, and others. So there are events that are taking place that really indicate erosion of democracy, yet both American and European visitors are ignoring this fact.
I’m not talking about the election observation mission. I’m talking about political leaders visiting the country are ignoring the fact because they seem to want the current government to continue in office. And they’ve made all sorts of almost direct but mostly indirect statements favoring the current government.
Asbed: Okay, well, given these situations right now. How should the opposition keep a relationship with these monitoring organizations, essentially to maximize the opportunity for free and fair elections?
Hrair: Look, I think it is too late to maximize the opportunity for free and fair, what I call democratic elections, much more than freedom and fairness of the elections. It’s a lot more than that. It may be I hope not. Perhaps measures can be taken to to improve the conditions under which the elections would take place, or at least stop the interference in the media, stop the interference in the activits of one party or another from the opposition.
But what I could suggest to the opposition is to keep a polite, professional relationship with the observation mission and explain to the observation missions what it is they’re concerned with, bring evidence of interference, evidence of illegal activities to the observation missions to allow them to see what is going on in the country in terms of the elections. So I would urge the opposition movement not to ignore the observation missions, start spreading rumors about the observation missions, in particular the OSCE ODIHR mission, and to engage with them on a professional level and explain to them their concerns.
Asbed: So one more follow up on that. The next couple of weeks are going to be absolutely crazy in Yerevan. The European Political Community is there, the EU-Armenia summit is there, and then there’s this conference called Yerevan Dialogue. I think it’s the second or third instantiation of that.
Same question, right? How can they maximize, how can the opposition maximize a relationship with those presences to indicate their side of the issues that they’re having?
Hrair: Look, beyond the elections, I mean, no doubt the holding of the summits, European summits, the two summits in Yerevan is a very important event for independent Armenia. Armenia is really on the map of Western states with these events. We should turn this event into something that can facilitate what we want above everything else. In my view, one of the most important issues still pending out there and an issue pending in the Armenia-Azerbaijan relationship is the holding of the 19 hostages in Baku.
The European leaders in Yerevan must be told in no uncertain terms that there is no peace between Armenia and Azerbaijani people as long as there are 19 Armenian hostages rotting, literally rotting in Azerbaijani jails today. I published an article just today on the Civil Net website on this issue in Armenian and in English. I urge people to read that article.
Asbed: It’s really- We will link to that article.
Hrair: Thank you. It’s really important. And please do link to the Armenian version of it, which the last I checked had not been posted yet, but should be posted tonight. But it’s really important.
Azerbaijan is keeping these hostages to humiliate the Armenians, to drag us through the mud every day that these people are in Baku. We cannot continue in this way. And we have to make the European leaders, all the leaders are going to be there, including not only European, also Canadian leaders. Right.
Mark Carney will attend. He will be there. So we must make them know with our actions, peaceful actions, with our actions that this situation cannot continue.
Asbed: Well, I hope you are being heard because I’m a little pessimistic about this situation because it’s not like these leaders don’t know whether they want to do anything about it. After two years of talking about this issue, I am a thousand percent sure that Macron knows and Mark Carney knows about the 19 prisoners in Baku.
Hrair: Let me interrupt you. They may very well know, and I’m sure they know, but shame them. Name them and shame them for not doing anything. Okay.
Make it difficult for them, more difficult for them not to do anything.
Hovik: Mr. Balian, as we close, I want to actually ask a completely off-topic question. Now, last year we interviewed Jean-Daniel Ruch, a former Swiss diplomat. And in fact, the first time I learned about you was through reading that book and mentioning various adventures that he had with you.
I want to ask because I think both of you were deployed in the Balkans at the time and Mr. Ruch was very critical of the US role in the region in terms of not just military intervention, but political intervention, specifically the elections in Serbia. He essentially said that Americans helped overthrow Slobodan Milošević. What was your role at the time, and would you agree with his point on that?
Hrair: Look, Jean-Daniel Ruch and I worked together at OSCE ODIHR in Warsaw. between 98 and I think he left in 2001 or two. I can’t remember. So we became very, very close and good friends and collaborators as a result of that working together in Very interesting and difficult situations quite frequently. After Jean-Daniel left the OSCE ODIHR, or maybe he was still at ODIHR when the elections took place in Serbia in 2001, January 2001, which overthrew Milošević.
Yes, the Americans had a role in the overthrowing of Milošević and I should say they should not have interfered but I’m glad they did. because Milošević was an evil person, really an evil person who caused all the wars in the Balkans and the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans. Yes, I know there should be an alliance between Armenians and Serbs, but Milošević is not my kind of a person.
Hovik: My question is not to defend his actions, but Genocide happened in Artsakh. Why isn’t the US interfering in deposing Aliyev? And when we try to use this argument that intervention is a valid tool, then isn’t that a slippery slope?
Hrair: Politics, politics, politics, geopolitics. Don’t ask me why the US did not interfere. Ask the US. Ask Trump.
Or Biden at the time. Doesn’t matter.
Asbed: Thank you very much for your time and very interesting insight today. I appreciate the time you’ve spent with us and we hope that this is not the last time we’ll be talking with you.
Hovik: Thank you. Thank you very much.
Asbed: That’s our show today. This episode was recorded on April 30th, 2026. And we’ve been talking with Mr. Hrair Balian, who is an international lawyer who has practiced conflict resolution in the Middle East, the Caucasus, Africa, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia.
He has served in leadership positions with the UN, the OSCE, NGOs, including the Carter Center. His latest book, Anatomy of Peacemaking: Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict and Missed Opportunities, came out earlier this year, 2026, and that’s what precipitated this conversation today. For more information on Hrair and everybody else in this episode, go to the show notes, podcasts.groong.org/538, and click on the links and other links that we provide in there. Thank you.
Hovik: Subscribe, like, comment, share, folks, and donate if you can. podcasts.groong.org/donate. Very much appreciated. And we hope that you enjoyed conversations like this and help us continue producing content like this for you. I’m Hovik Manucharyan.
Asbed: And I’m Asbed Bedrossian. We’ll talk to you soon.
Hovik: Bye-bye.