ABSTRACT
This Chapter explores the obstacles that hindered a mutually negotiated solution to the Karabakh conflict and explores the prospects for resolving it. For two decades, the Minsk Group (MG) Co-Chairs used traditional statist diplomacy, despite its inadequacies in responding to the nature of the conflict, to reach a compromise solution, ignoring the experienced mutual animosities between the Armenians and Azerbaijanis for decades that were rooted in a perceived threat to identity and survival. It addresses the limitations of the top-level approach to peace and that another approach that concentrates on the identity groups in the conflict and locates middle-range leaders among people is necessary to build the peace. The chapter stresses the need for a multitrack approach including track two diplomacy that can lead to conflict resolution. Therefore, what is needed to resolve the Karabakh conflict is a broad, open-ended and dynamic process embracing efforts to transform injustices as well as to bridge opposing positions.
