The OSCE summit held in Astana in early December 2010 crossed out talks on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict and drew closer another war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Though President Ilham Aliyev and his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sargsyan were expected to continue negotiating Karabakh settlement on the sidelines of the summit, the meeting did not take place. Baku said it deemed presidential talks "unnecessary" and doubted it would move the peace process forward, as it "does not see a fresh view on the Karabakh conflict on the Armenian side". Both Armenia and Azerbaijan consider themselves winners, and in the backdrop of this reasoning, the key outcomes of the Astana summit remain in the background. The summit, in fact, indicated "the inaction" of the OSCE as an influential organization. During the summit in the Kazakh capital, which took place December 1-2, the OSCE was expected to adopt an action plan to strengthen the security group's role in resolving "frozen" conflicts, but no agreement was reached among its members. Diplomats said that efforts to find a deal had been torpedoed by rows over Georgia's breakaway regions, the Armenia-Azerbaijan dispute and the Moldovan rebel region of Transdniestr. In conclusion, the OSCE barely adopted a final declaration following lengthy discussions.

Despite widespread hopes and even expectations that the OSCE summit in Astana would bring progress toward the resolution of what has become known as the Karabakh conflict that did not happen. And while some diplomats are already seeking to put the best face on things by noting that "at least" there was a meeting between Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, something that was uncertain until the very last moment, the failure to make discernable progress in the negotiations raises some serious questions about the future of that conflict and the role of the OSCE's Minsk Group in those discussions.

To understand why expectations were so high, it is necessary to recall three things. First, because Kazakhstan was OSCE chairman-in-office during the last year and because Astana had made it clear that progress on Karabakh was near the top of its agenda, many assumed that it very much hoped to orchestrate an accord to be announced at this summit meeting. Second, the intensity of visits and meetings of the OSCE Minsk Group, which consists of an American, French and Russian co-chair, has rarely been greater than over the last few months, a pattern that suggested the parties were making progress. And third, in support of the Minsk Group and the presidents of the two other co-chair countries, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had taken a more active role in recent times, something many commentators have suggested is a pre-condition for progress.

Moreover, pressure seemed to be growing on Armenia to accept the modified Madrid Principles that would lead to Armenian withdrawal more or less immediately from five Azerbaijani districts and parts of a sixth as well as to an ultimate Armenian withdrawal from Karabakh itself. Turkey had made it clear that its opening to Yerevan would not really take off until Armenia agreed to this arrangement and began to implement it. Ever more countries, including Iran, and international organizations, such as NATO and the European Union, have adopted increasingly toughly-worded resolutions in support of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. And Russia, despite its cultural sympathies with Armenia, has demonstrated that it is more interested in Azerbaijan as the ultimate prize of its Caucasus policy.

But despite that, there was little or no movement. Azerbaijan has already agreed to the renewed Madrid principles, but Armenia's leaders, apparently concluding that they have nothing to lose by simply maintaining the status quo, refused to make any significant steps in the direction of a final accord, despite the president of one Minsk Group co-chair country, the prime minister of a second and the secretary of state of the third and despite the hopes and even expectations of many who are concerned that the OSCE must demonstrate its ability to solve such conflicts or become increasingly irrelevant.

When it became obvious that no agreement was going to take place in Astana, the co-chair countries issued a statement which "recalled the joint statements of the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia, with the President of the Russian Federation, on November 2, 2008, in Moscow, and on October 27, 2010, in Astrakhan. They further agreed that a peaceful, negotiated settlement will bring stability and security and is the only way to bring real reconciliation to the peoples of the region. "The Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan reaffirmed their commitment to seek a final settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, based upon: the principles and norms of international law; the United Nations Charter; the Helsinki Final Act; as well as the statements of Presidents Medvedev, Sarkozy, and Obama, at L'Aquila on July 10, 2009, and at Muskoka on June 26, 2010."

And "the three OSCE Co-Chair countries pledged their support for the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia as they make the necessary decisions to reach a peaceful settlement. They urged the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to focus with renewed energy on the issues that still remain in the Basic Principles, and instructed their Co-Chairs to continue to work with the parties to the conflict to assist in these efforts. In order to create a better atmosphere for the negotiations, they called for additional steps to strengthen the ceasefire and carry out confidence-building measures in all fields," the kind of language diplomats use to conceal failure rather than to trumpet success.

Speaking in the Kazakh capital, Clinton said the mediators and the parties must "renew our efforts toward a settlement in Karabakh" that would be based on six general principles articulated by the US, French and Russian presidents in a joint statement in July 2009 issued after their talks in L'Aquila, Italy. Among those principles are the return of the Armenian-controlled territories around Karabakh to Azerbaijan and an "interim status" for Karabakh itself, which would guarantee its "security and self-governance." The proposed peace framework also envisages that Karabakh's final status would be determined through "a legally binding expression of will."

However, the presidents didn't meet at the summit. This scenario was likely from the start, due to the general negative background of the summit. Shortly before the summit, Serzh Sargsyan, accompanied by Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian and senior officers, visited the occupied Azerbaijani territories. He attended military manoeuvres there. Walking along rows of soldiers, Sargsyan made a speech about Armenia being prepared for a war for Nagorno-Karabakh's independence. At the summit, the president of Armenia said that Nagorno-Karabakh would never be returned to Azerbaijan.

President Aliyev was more openly angry about Armenia's failure to move toward a resolution of the dispute. "Today," he declared, "Armenia uses force to keep the occupied territories under its control and to block the return of internally displaced persons to their homelands. Nevertheless," he said, "Azerbaijan remains committed to peace talks and the principles laid out by various international organizations."

Unfortunately, the Azerbaijani leader continued, "instead of conducting negotiations toward the resolution of the conflict, Armenia continues to prefer to escalate the conflict, violate the ceasefire regime, conduct military exercises in the occupied territories, change the names of [Azerbaijani] cities and villages, pursues an illegal settlement policy, and attempt to transform the peace process into a senseless exercise."

"Such behavior," President Aliyev said, "gives grounds for thinking that Armenia does not intend to free the occupied territories but instead wants to maintain the status quo for a long period and make the talks conducted with the mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group into something meaningless." We have been talking "for 20 years," he said, "but there is no result. We are ready to continue negotiations, conclude them quickly and reach an outcome based on the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and corresponding to international norms and principles."

What is this failure going to mean for the future of the Karabakh conflict in general and for the OSCE Minsk Group in particular? Many officials and political leaders in Azerbaijan, from President Aliyev on down, have stressed that they are not prepared to wait forever for the return of the occupied territories and that Baku has the resources to take them back by force if Armenia refuses to negotiate in good faith. Usually, statements in this regard have been seen as part of the negotiating process, as the sticks behind any carrots, rather than as an actual threat of imminent action.

One of the few tangible results of the summit was perhaps the joint declaration on the Karabakh conflict settlement by the Minsk group of the OSCE (Russia, US, France, as well as Armenia and Azerbaijan). Yet, pessimism and mutual distrust prevail both in Armenia and Azerbaijan. Armenian Foreign Minister, Edward Nalbandian, referring to the November 2, 2008 Moscow declaration, supported the Russian president's thesis on the non-use of force in settling regional conflicts, which Medvedev also reaffirmed during the OSCE summit.

Apparently, the "non-use of force' terminology is a convenient phrase as Armenia attempts to preserve the present status quo in Karabakh. At the same time, the OSCE did very little to broker peace between the conflicting sides and reach a solution to the long-running issue. In Astana, the previously planned talks between Armenian President, Serzh Sargsyan, and his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliev, mediated by OSCE officials did not take place. The two leaders could hardly find common ground. The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan have already expended their resources to find a compromise solution, and the attempt by the mediators to arrange such a meeting in Astana was totally futile.

But clearly, Armenia's unwillingness to be more forthcoming at Astana will lead to an increase in the volume of such statements, and Armenia may find itself confronted with the need to increase its own military effort or, more likely, to defer even more to an expanded Russian military presence, something that might prevent a conflict in the short term but that would expose Yerevan to even greater Russian influence over time, influence that Moscow would likely use eventually to secure a settlement in Karabakh that Azerbaijan would be happy about.

(Many analysts have long assumed that because of the religious and cultural ties between Russians and Armenians and because Moscow in the past has benefited from tensions in the region that the Russian government will never change its position. But as one extremely wise Azerbaijani observer put it not long ago, in the South Caucasus, for Russia, "Georgia is the way, Armenia is the tool, but Azerbaijan is the prize." Consequently, if Moscow does conclude that it stands to gain enormous influence in Azerbaijan by shifting away from Armenia, it is a near certainty that Russia will do just that.)

A military conflict is thus not likely in the short term unless something terrible goes wrong, and that is in itself a kind of victory. But if the guns are not going to fire, ever more people are going to ask some serious questions about the negotiations themselves, given, as President Aliyev pointed out, their lack of progress over almost a generation. And that means there may be calls for organizing a new grouping, especially as many of the participants at Astana pointed out that the OSCE should be renamed, reorganized, or otherwise transformed.

A shift on this point in the very near term may be unlikely as well. But as the actions of Russian President Medvedev have shown, the role of individual countries may expand at the expense of the Minsk Group. That may complicate matters, especially since the Minsk Group was drawn from the membership of the only international organization in which all the countries of the South Caucasus region or abutting it are included except Iran. Clearly, Iran like Turkey is going to want to have a larger role than it has had in the past, and that too will put pressure on all the parties for a new venue.

What form this might take is unclear, but it seems likely that there will be more bilateral efforts and somewhat fewer multilateral ones, a pattern that will reflect growing recognition of a fundamental reality: Ultimately, the two countries most immediately involved are going to have to agree, regardless of what the international community says. Azerbaijan, as President Aliyev said, is ready to do so. Astana showed that Armenia is not.

After the end of the Cold War, the expectations of effective mediation for peace negotiations and subsequent control over compliance with the terms of a future agreement on a comprehensive political settlement were linked exactly with the OSCE. However, like the approach to other regional issues, in the issue of the Armenian-Azerbaijani settlement, the political face OSCE as an international organization reflects all the convulsions of the world order at the turn of the millennium. Paradoxically, most Western experts note with regret that the OSCE is still far from becoming a spokesperson for the voice of the international democratic community, despite that it officially proclaimed human rights above the rights of individual states. OSCE's position on critical issues of modern time, including the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, is defined as the resultant of many political factors in a specific period of time. The OSCE summit in Astana was not a breakthrough in resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, but the statement made by presidents was a positive trend. This statement is an important document because it was adopted in the 3+2 format and points to the need to intensify efforts to resolve the Karabakh conflict. The statement targets resolving the conflict through peaceful negotiations and approves the principles of the supremacy of international law. We have to admit that the decisive role in the OSCE is played by a group of so-called "big states", among which the United States and the whole EU dominate. It is not accidental that adopted at the Astana summit, the statement means that the presidents of the co-chairing countries were obliged to be more active in the conflict settlement process.

This apparent impasse and other disagreements implies an uncertain future for the Karabakh negotiating process amid what many experts believe is a growing risk of another Armenian-Azeri war. Both Russia and Western powers continue to voice strong opposition to a military solution to the dispute, which is increasingly threatened by Aliyev. The latter regularly points to his government's soaring defense spending, due to reach a new record high of $3.1 billion in 2011, compared with only $405 million budgeted for Armenia's armed forces. Armenia will continue to seek to offset the Azeri military build-up by using its military alliance with Russia, which it upgraded earlier this year. A new military pact signed by the two states in late August commits Moscow to supplying its South Caucasus ally with modern and compatible weaponry and special military hardware.