This short essay will analyze the track record and prospects of one of the OSCE-led mechanisms, namely the OSCE Minsk Group, which was established to regulate the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The essay will examine the particular OSCE mechanism in terms of its enforcement capabilities and limitations, accessibility, and inclusivity for affected groups, placing special focus on the 5th term of the Minsk Group’s mandate. The 5th term of the Minsk Group’s mandate declares that the mechanism is overseeing the confidence-building measures between the conflicting parties in the humanitarian field, aligning with the political process (OSCE 1995).
The main thesis of the essay is that the OSCE Minsk Group has failed its conflict resolution mission since it mainstreamed its activities through the Track One diplomacy and an exclusively top-down approach, neglecting the opportunities and possibilities in the humanitarian field and grassroots level.
The Brief Information About the Mission
The OSCE Minsk Group was launched by the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, now the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, in 1992 due to the erupted violent conflict between two former Soviet republics, Armenia and Azerbaijan (OSCE n.d.). On 24 March 1992, the Helsinki Additional Meeting of the CSCE Council requested the Chairman-in-Office to hold a conference where the political solutions to the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict would be presented. (OSCE n.d.). Minsk was determined as a venue for the conference, so the initiative was later called the Minsk Group.
Following the Budapest decision in 1994, which envisaged the establishment of the co-chairmanship, on 23 March 1995, the Hungarian Chairman-in-Office, Marton Krasznai, enacted the mandate of the Group consisting of 15 terms (OSCE 1995). One of them (the 5th term) also considers the human dimension, i.e., the confidence-building measures between the conflicting parties in the humanitarian field.
In 1997, the Co-Chairmanship institute was declared within the OSCE Minsk Group led by France, Russia, and the United States, later labeled as “troika” by conflict experts and journalists (Huseynov 2015). This term comes from the Russian word тройка, meaning "a group of three.” The Minsk Group includes several other participating states: Turkiye, Germany, Belarus, Finland, Italy, Sweden, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The anticipated Minsk Conference has not been held yet.
The Subject of the Mechanism
Following the chaotic collapse of the Soviet Union, the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast and seven surrounding districts in southwestern Azerbaijan became the battleground between Armenian and Azerbaijani armed forces, resulting in the occupation of Azerbaijani territories. Leaving a considerable number of people affected, the first cycle of the armed conflict continued by 1994, when the OSCE Minsk Group could broker the ceasefire agreement (Mills & Walker 2023). However, it is pertinent to mention that the Russian Federation obviously and unilaterally dominated the mediation process for the agreement, leaving behind the other members of the Group.
Subsequently, in 2020 and 2023, reactivated military operations led to the full retake of the territory by Azerbaijan, and the disbandment of the Russian peacekeepers deployed into the region following the second war. Apparently, the Russian Federation held a dominant position in diplomacy after the Second Karabakh War, arranging the trilateral declaration without using the OSCE mechanism following the military clashes. Turkiye, another member of the OSCE Minsk Group, has been marginally involved in the post-war processes, administering the Observatory Center alongside the Russian military forces. This Observatory Center, managed jointly by Russia and Turkiye, was also dissolved in April 2024 (AZERTAG 2024).
“Aiming for Too Much, Ending Up With Nothing”
OSCE Minsk Group’s inflated and highly political goals set with the liberal optimism of the unipolar world order after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, undermined the basic successes that the mechanism could achieve.
In all sincerity, it was visible that nobody had an objection to Russia’s leading role in the diplomacy of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict from the beginning. It could happen due to several factors, but mainly because of the “Russia first” policy implemented by the Collective West, besides an oversimplified image of the interests of the conflicting parties. Viewing the region as a “chessboard”, favoring the Chairman states’ political positions over the conflict parties’ interests would lead to bitter frustration and dissatisfaction in Armenia and Azerbaijan over the decades.
Nevertheless, before the active phase of the political negotiations (1997-2007) had started, the OSCE Minsk Group achieved success in the humanitarian field, facilitating the prisoner exchange between sides in 1995 (PolSoc Paper 2025). This could be a clear indicator for the strategy-setting, making the humanitarian direction at least as functional as the political process. But the Minsk Group took bolder decisions, mainstreaming its activities through the Track One diplomacy, making the mechanism top-down oriented and highly inaccessible for the conflict-affected population.
Neither civil society organizations nor conflict-affected people from the sides of the conflict could participate, nor to some extent have a voice in the mediation process, as all the processes remained state-centric (PolSoc Paper 2025). The isolation from the people and the growing escalation of the conflict, partly due to the futility of the negotiations, led to the mistrust of the ordinary Azerbaijanis and Armenians towards the Minsk Group, substantially decreasing the legitimacy of the mission on the ground.
Onnik James Krikorian, a frequently commenting on the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict, Armenian journalist, summarized his upsetting impressions about the Mission’s decades-long fruitless activities in his op-ed published at the beginning of this year: “[W]indow after window of opportunity were announced only to be slammed shut at the last minute. It also wasn’t long before many criticised the process as an imitation of talks.” (Krikorian 2025).
OSCE Minsk Group could elaborate only a few political resolution models, starting with “Stage by Stage” and “Package” deals and ultimately ending up in the Madrid principles within 1997-2009, which were alternately rejected by the conflict parties. Neither side was willing to compromise, as the conflict dynamics were inherent to the internal politics of Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Simultaneously, there exists only a single “evidence-based” report by the OSCE Minsk Group on the humanitarian situation that emerged as a result of the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict issued on 24 March 2011, yet only the executive summary part of the report is available online, stating the “stark evidence of the disastrous consequences of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the failure to reach a peaceful settlement” in three paragraphs (OSCE 2011).
The highly unsuccessful performance of the OSCE Minsk Group leaves Azerbaijan and Armenia with low hopes for the last accords of the mission. As if the mission has not focused on the humanitarian aspect of the conflict, and failed to achieve fruitful results in Track One diplomacy, due to its lack of legitimacy, it is hard to believe that the Mission can be instrumental for any remaining issues, such as facilitating the peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan, observing and facilitating the right to return of the displaced people. Just as it had previously failed to accomplish anything meaningful regarding the right of return for hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijani internally displaced persons.
As a negative outcome, the failure of the mission became part of the discourse of the authoritarian regime in Azerbaijan.
Bibliography
AZERTAG. 2024. "Türkiyə-Rusiya Birgə Monitorinq Mərkəzinin bağlanış mərasimi keçirilib." Azərbaycan Dövlət İnformasiya Agentliyi, April 26, 2024. Accessed May 18, 2025. https://azertag.az/xeber/turkiye_rusiya_birge_monitorinq_merkezinin_baglanis_merasimi_kechirilib-2976601.
Huseynov, Rusif. 2015. "Time to Reform the Minsk Group." Politicon, September 10, 2015. Accessed May 18, 2025. https://politicon.co/en/analytics/144/time-to-reform-the-minsk-group.
Krikorian, Onnik James. 2025. "Opinion: From Key West to Key Failures – The Demise of the OSCE Minsk Group." commonspace.eu, January 14, 2025. Accessed May 18, 2025. https://www.commonspace.eu/opinion/opinion-key-west-key-failures-demise-osce-minsk-group.
Mills, Claire, and Nigel Walker. 2023. Closure of the Lachin Corridor and the Humanitarian Situation in Nagorno-Karabakh. Research Briefing CDP-2023-0015. London: House of Commons Library. Accessed May 18, 2025. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cdp-2023-0015/.
OSCE. 1995. Mandate of the Co-Chairmen of the Conference on Nagorno-Karabakh under the Auspices of the OSCE ("Minsk Conference"). Vienna: OSCE Chairmanship. Accessed May 18, 2025. https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/f/f/70125.pdf.
OSCE. 2011. Report of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs' Field Assessment Mission to the Occupied Territories of Azerbaijan Surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh. Vienna: OSCE. Accessed May 18, 2025. https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/7/d/76209.pdf.
OSCE. n.d. "Who We Are: Minsk Group." Accessed May 18, 2025. https://www.osce.org/minsk-group/108306.
PolSoc Paper. 2025. "The Karabakh Conflict and the Minsk Group: A Case of Failed Mediation." February 26, 2025. Accessed May 18, 2025. https://uospolsocpaper.com/2025/02/26/the-karabakh-conflict-and-the-minsk-group-a-case-of-failed-mediation/.
