Asia South Asia - Evolution of negotiations

definitions and types

3.2. Evolution of negotiations

3.2.3. Asia South Asia

In Afghanistan, several meetings were held with the Taliban in different countries, with the help and coordination of a large number of countries: USA, Pakistan, China, Iran, Qatar and Norway. Reuters revealed that a Taliban delegation travelled from Qatar to Pakistan to meet with Pakistani representatives and Chinese diplomats and that the Taliban would have also travelled to Quetta (Baluchistan, in Pakistan) to meet with the Taliban leadership, although officially, the Taliban representatives and officials of the Chinese Government denied that the meeting ever took

4. See the summary on Mali (north) in chapter 1 (Armed Conflicts).

place. During the second quarter, the most significant since President Ashraf Ghani came to power was the change in Afghanistan’s policy towards Pakistan and the involvement of its neighbours and other allies in ensuring peace in the country. Ghani’s outstretched hand policy to Pakistan made the rapprochement possible. The Afghan president was convinced that the Pakistani military held the key to get the Taliban involved in the dialogue. On 30^th April it was published that the movement’s supreme leader, mullah Omar, had died in April 2013. That same day, the negotiations were cancelled and a part of the Taliban leadership met to elect his successor, mullah Akhtar Mansur. His appointment did not please several Taliban leaders, including the family of mullah Omar, who showed their disagreement and accused Mansur of manipulating the election. These events abode for divisions within the Taliban ranks and possible internal struggles for the leadership, which distracted the group from the negotiations with the Government. In December, the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, and the Pakistani president, Nawaz Sharif, agreed to resume the peace dialogue once again.

In India, there was a first round of conversations among the Indian Government and the ULFA faction of the armed opposition group Assam that was favourable to negotiations. The delegation of the ULFA-Pro Negotiations highlighted that all the main issues were discussed and that their central claims were the granting of the status of Scheduled Tribes for six communities, and therefore, of reserved spaces, based on this status, at the State Assembly and other legislative bodies. The leader of ULFA-Pro Negotiations, Anup Kumar Chetia, who was imprisoned in Bangladesh from 1997 to 2005, and then confined to isolation in that same country, was initially deported to India to take part in the peace negotiations. Towards the end of December, Chetia was released. Also, the Indian Government and the armed opposition group from Nagaland, NSCN-IM, reached a pre-peace framework agreement containing 33 points;

it was signed by the leaders of the armed group, Isak Chishi Swu and Th. Muivah, and the main Government interlocutor, R.N. Ravi, with the presence of the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. The agreement, which was called a “preamble” by the Naga to find a final solution to the Naga issue and should serve as a framework to continue with the negotiation process until a final agreement is reached, was adopted after more than 80 rounds of negotiations, which had started in 1997. Both parties accepted the idea of “shared sovereignty” and coexistence. The format of these negotiations changed to make them more agile and effective. Negotiations will no further consist of formal rounds of negotiation, but rather a series of meetings between the Government interlocutor and the leaders of the NSCN-IM, who can meet with the former to discuss any issue, to allow accelerating the negotiation process.

As for the dispute between India and Pakistan over the region of Kashmir, the Pakistani Prime Minister proposed a new peace initiative for the Cashmere region to his Indian counterpart, based on an indefinite truce,

the full demilitarisation of the territory and a joint withdrawal from the Siachen glacier. Later in time, the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, and his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, held an informal meeting where they exchanged ideas to resume the peace dialogue. Towards the end of the year, both leaders flew together on Sharif’s official helicopter from Lahore to Raiwind, where the Pakistani Prime Minister has his residence. There they mainly discussed the Cashmere and Afghanistan dialogue processes. It was the first visit from an Indian Prime Minister since 2004. The visit only lasted a few hours. In a similar way, at the border between the two countries, members of their armed forces met to discuss security issues.

In Pakistan, the Government and the nationalist leaders of Balochistan acknowledged the importance of starting a dialogue process to overcome the Baloch conflict through political means. The Government granted an amnesty for the Balochistan insurgents that would lay down their weapons and renounce violence. The leader of the Baloch Republican Party (BRP), Bugti, in exile in Geneva, granted an interview to the BBC, where he announced he backed a negotiated solution to the conflict and that he gave up the claims for the independence of Balochistan. By the end of the year, the Government was trying to initiate conversations with the Baloch leaders.

South-east Asia

In the Philippines, the ongoing process between the Government and the MILF experienced its worst crisis in recent years, after some 70 people, including 44 members of a special police corps, died in Mamasapano (Maguindanao Province) in January, during clashes where, among others, the MILF and the BIFF participated. In this regard, pressure on the President, Congress and Government increased to paralyse of decelerate the adoption of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) and some congressmen, after the armed incident, even expressed their opposition to the draft bill. The MILF issued an official statement highlighting that if the Congress adopted a law that was susbstantially different from the writing and spirit of the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro and the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro, which were adopted in 2013 and 2014, respectively, then the MILF would put an end to the decommissioning of weapons and the demobilisation of combatants that had started symbolically in June. Therefore, Manila considered there wasn’t sufficient time to reach a comprehensive agreement with the NDF before the end of Aquino’s mandate in mid-2016, but that it was possible to make substantial progress in the negotiation agenda.

In Myanmar, towards the end of March, the Government and the armed opposition groups that are part of the Nationwide Ceasefire Coordination Team

(NCCT) declared they had reached an agreement, in Yangon, after the seventh round of negotiations, to reach a national ceasefire. The agreement should be ratified by the different groups before its signature, and the decision on which armed groups should sign was left for a later date, since at that point, five of the 16 organisations in the NCCT weren’t recognised by the Government as political organisations and neither had they signed bilateral ceasefire agreements with the Executive. Also, during the negotiations, it was decided that some of the more sensitive issues, such as the establishment of a federal Army and the creation of a code of conduct, would be left aside until the ceasefire agreement had been signed and until a political negotiations process had been launched.

In October, the Government reached a ceasefire agreement with eight armed groups –KNU, KNLA-PC, DKBA, Pa-O NLO, CNF, ALP, ABSDF, RCS/SSA– from the 21 insurgent actors in the country. Besides the signing groups, seven other armed groups had signed a part of the negotiation process with the Government.

From those groups that didn’t join the agreement it is worth noting the UWSA, the SSA or the KIA, all of which control large territories and have a large arsenal of weapons. In December the first steps were taken towards a political dialogue process in the country.

Some of the central points being discussed would be a constitutional reform, the federal question and a greater autonomy.

In Thailand (south), according to some analysts, the Government intended to establish to parallel dialogue pathways, one official (to discuss politically substantive issues) and another secret one to discuss issues of an operational nature. As for the secret pathway, at the time it was uncertain who would lead it from the Government, although it transpired that in December 2014 two meetings took place between two armed groups and senior officials from the Armed Forces in the south of the country. Towards mid-March, General Aksara Kerpol travelled to the south of Thailand and met with religious leaders in the region to discuss some of the issues relating to reconciliation and to encourage them to convince members of the armed groups to lay down their weapons. At a later date came conversations between the Government and a platform, known as the Mijlis Syura Patani (Mara Patani, Patani Advisory Council), bringing together six insurgent organisations: the BRN, three different factions of the PULO, the BIPP and the GMIP. A series of informal meetings started between the parties in Kuala Lumpur, facilitated by the Government of Malaysia. Mara Patani demanded recognition for the Patani nation (and therefore its right to self-determination) as well as the presence of international mediators and observers in the peace conversations. At the end of the year, the Government negotiator declared that the negotiations were divided in three stages: the establishment of trust-building measures, the ratification of agreements already reached, and agreeing to a “roadmap”.

3.2.4. Europe

Eastern Europe

The new Prime Minister of Moldova, Chiril Gaburici –appointed to the post in February, after months of negotiations to conform a new Government since the elections held in November– and the leader of Transdniestria, Yevgeny Shevchuk, met on 14^th March in Chisinau. This was the first meeting at that level since the one in October 2013. Both parties valued positively the meeting, which lasted two hours, and the climate of trust. Among the outcomes, they signed a protocol extending the agreement on transport of goods by railway up to December 2016. Despite the tension caused by the Ukrainian conflict, Moldova’s vice-prime minister and chief negotiator, Viktor Osipov, highlighted at the end of June that he noticed differences between the escalation of tension in the Russian media and Russia’s official political line. After the meeting with his Russian counterpart, Dmitri Rogozin, on 24^th June, Osipov stated that Russia had underscored the need to cut down the tension and prevent further escalations.

In Ukraine, during the first three months, we witnessed a serious escalation of violence between January and mid-February, forcing international emergency negotiations that led to the signing of the Minsk II Agreement on 12^th February. This then led to urgent negotiations in Minsk, within the framework of the Normandy Quartet (the German Chancellor Angela Merkel; the French President François Hollande; the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko; and the Russian President Vladimir Putin) and the Trilateral Contact Group, with representatives from the authorities in Donetsk and Lugansk. This resulted in a new agreement (Minsk II Agreement) and a political statement signed by Poroshenko, Putin, Merkel and Hollande, indicating a revision of the free trade agreement between the EU and Ukraine through a trilateral process that would also involve Russia, as well as responding to some of Russia’s concerns. On the other hand, on 17^th March, the Ukrainian Parliament adopted a draft bill on the special status for areas under rebel control, which would enter into force after the local elections were held in those areas. Russia and the rebel authorities criticised that conditioning the status to the outcome of the local elections contravened the Minsk II agreement and included terms that were not in the negotiations. After conversations behind a closed door between Ukrainian representatives and from the rebel forces, with the participation of Russia and the OSCE, at the beginning of May, the working groups were established that same month, with a format under the umbrella of the Trilateral Contact Group (Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE, with the participation of the rebel forces), which will maintain decision-making power. Russia opened a bilateral diplomatic channel with the USA to tackle the Ukrainian crisis, which joined the dialogue spaces under the umbrella of the Trilateral Contact Group and the Normandy format. New agreements were reached relating to a ceasefire and

also the withdrawal of arms that led to a de-escalation of violence, and also there was a commitment to complete an amnesty law and a new constitutional status for areas currently controlled by the rebels.

Russia and Caucasus

As for the negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh region, the process, which had remained at a standstill in recent years, was negatively impacted during the first quarter by the strong deterioration of the situation relating to the ceasefire line. The Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents agreed to study the proposals made by the Minsk Group to strengthen the ceasefire and they discussed the preparations for a future meeting between the two leaders. The escalation of incidents in September led the Minsk Government to express serious concerns over the use of mortars and heavy arms by Armenia and Azerbaijan near civilian areas, which they condemned as unacceptable, in a statement issued on 25^th September.

During the second fortnight of December, the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan met in Switzerland and acknowledged that the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh had deteriorated.

In Georgia, a Treaty on Alliance and Integration between Russia and South Ossetia was signed, straining and hampering the climate of negotiations. Again, Abkhazia and Ossetia refused to guarantee the right to return, and their Governments’ accusations against Georgia over the politicisation of the issue. During the second quarter, the 32^nd round of international conversations took place in Geneva (30^th June – 1^st July), where a constructive climate prevailed, even if there were clear differences among the parties and no significant advances. The negotiation format maintained the structure of the two working groups, one on issues relating to security and another on humanitarian issues. In the first, issues linked to the non-use of force were dealt with, and preparatory work continued for a joint declaration on this point. South Ossetia and Abkhazia reiterated their refusal to discuss the right to return until Georgia withdraws its annual reports on displaced people and refugees at the UN General Assembly. However, they did discuss other issues on the instruction language at schools in areas of South Ossetia with a Georgian majority.

South-east Europe

In Cyprus, it was reported that the Greek and Turkish Cypriot authorities, in March, were considering stopping their unilateral activities to exploit hydrocarbons in the Mediterranean to facilitate going back to the negotiation table, also as a reaction to a Turkish seismic exploration vessel stopping its activities. The parties held a first meeting on 15^th May, formally marking the re-launching of the process. The leaders agreed to meet at least twice

a month, and to lead the negotiations personally, as well as establishing trust-building measures. The Special Advisor to the UN Secretary-General announced, at the end of May, a set of five commitments adopted by the parties: work towards opening new border crossing points, starting by Lefka-Aplici and Deryneia; establishing practical measures to advance towards interconnecting the electrical grid; launching discussions and making proposals for the interoperability of the mobile phone networks; preventing radio interferences; and establishing a committee on gender equality. At the joint meeting on 17^th June the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders, Nicos Anastasiades and Mustafa Akinci, met under the auspices of the UN on 29^th June, and again on 10^th and 27^th July, and on 1^st and 14^th September, while their work and negotiation teams increased the frequency of their meetings. At the end of the year, they decided to speed-up the pace of the dialogues.

Regarding Kosovo, the prime ministers of Serbia and Kosovo, signed an agreement in Brussels for the integration of the judicial structures in the north of Kosovo into the Kosovan judicial system. They also agreed to set up a direct line to discuss specific or unattended issues.

An agreement was signed between Serbia and Kosovo for the dismantlement of the Serbian security corps that had been de-facto operating in the Serbian areas and to have them join the Kosovo police. There was a further round to the dialogue process, with the prime ministers, in Brussels, at the end of June, facilitated by the EU Foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini. According to Mogherini, the parties progressed in terms of the future creation of an Association of Serbian Municipalities of Kosovo and regarding telecommunications. In June, the parties agreed a packet of four relevant agreements:

on energy, telecommunications, association of Kosovo Serb municipalities and the bridge dividing the town of Mitrovica. In December the political and social tension continued in Kosovo, with new violent episodes of tear gas being launched at the middle of the month in the Kosovar Parliament, by MPs of the three Kosovar Albanian opposition parties, who pretested against the agreement reached in August between Serbia and Kosovo on the creation of an Association of Serbian Municipalities in Kosovo and against an agreement on the border demarcation with Montenegro.

In Turkey (south-east), the dialogue process between the Government and the PKK continued amidst great uncertainty during the first three months, where the leader of the PKK called on the group to end the armed fighting against Turkey subject to some conditions.

According to information in the press, a form of initial agreement on the declaration was reached at the meeting on 4^th February between the HDP Kurdish delegation, Öcalan and Government representatives and the intelligence services. However, big obstacles remained.

These included the messages from the Government, later on, pointing that the PKK would lay down its arms, which the PKK did not consider a prior issue but rather something that had to be negotiated during the

process. Finally, the joint public appearance took place on 28^th February with political representatives of the Kurdish movement (a member of parliament from the HDP Sürreya önder, and a member of the HDP Pervin Buldan) and the Government (the vice-Prime Minister, Yalcin Akdogan, and the Minister of the Interior, Efkan Ala). During the appearance, Önder announced the 10 points that Öcalan considered were paramount and that some interpreted as issues to be discussed during the negotiations. Vice-President Akdogan declared, on 18^th March, that the Government supported the creation of a dialogue monitoring committee, as a third party to the process. However, President Erdogan denied there was any agreement on this mechanism, rejected it, and declared that the joint appearance had been inappropriate, meaning he also rejected Öcalan’s 10 points read out at the event. Erdogan stated on several occasions, from the end of March through to April, that the Government wouldn’t take any further steps towards peace if the PKK did not lay down its weapons, denied that a local supervising committee

Dans le document human rights and peacebuilding (Page 167-174)