AFTER 30 years of intractable stand-off an armed conflict has resumed between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Fighting in the South Caucuses threatens to escalate into a wider conflict with both states having powerful backers in Russia and Turkey. The violence seems very far away from the hopes for peace which brought representatives of Armenia and Azerbaijan to Scotland 17 years ago. Despite huge differences, parliamentary delegations from Yerevan and Baku came to Edinburgh and Craigellachie for the first discussions of their kind outside the former Soviet Union.

It was following the collapse of the USSR that both newly independent republics fought a short and bloody war over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan which is populated mostly by ethnic Armenians. Tens of thousands of people were killed in the fighting and hundreds of thousands of civilians were displaced as refugees. The result of the conflict was the de facto independence of Nagorno-Karabakh from Azerbaijan and its effective unification with Armenia which occupies adjacent territory belonging to Azerbaijan. A heavily armed line of control exists between both sides, along which frequent ceasefire breaches have taken place.

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Throughout the last 30 years diplomatic efforts have been under way to try to find a mediated settlement. This was initiated by the Vienna-based Conference (now Organisation) for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which set up the Minsk Group of nations to steer towards a diplomatic solution. In the absence of tangible progress other parallel efforts have also been pursued, which is where Scotland comes in.

Seventeen years ago I chaired the South Caucasus All-Party Parliamentary Group at Westminster and worked with the non-government organisation (NGO) LINKS, headed by the regional expert Dennis Sammut. His interest in Scottish devolution and peaceful civic constitutional change led to an initiative to bring parliamentarians from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia to Scotland. Under the auspices of the South Caucuses Parliamentary Initiative (SCPI) 30 MPs travelled to Edinburgh where they were received at the Scottish Parliament, hosted at the Prestonfield House Hotel and then travelled north for discussions at the Craigellachie Hotel on Speyside, where they also enjoyed the hospitality of Glenfiddich Distillery and were entertained by a local pipe band.

The discussions, which were not without danger for the participants who faced risks being seen to work together, went extremely well and had a positive impact. This week, Dennis Sammut recalled the event in an interview on BBC Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland:

“We actually had bilateral face-to-face meetings between the members of parliament from Armenia and Azerbaijani for a very deep and serious discussion. These were times when a solution still looked possible and our efforts were directed at building a momentum for peace by introducing a number of dialogue processes and confidence-building measures.

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“We chose Scotland because Scotland was at an interesting moment at that time, perhaps still is, of constitutional evolution and there was a lot of interest in the South Caucasus about how that was working. So we though we would kill two birds with one stone: we will have the dialogue meeting but we will also give the opportunity for these politicians to actually see the Scottish experience at work.”

Despite the lack of an overall diplomatic solution to the conflict Dennis Sammut believes that the Scottish initiative was worthwhile: “It was one of the few positive elements in what has been on the whole a story of sad experiences.”

Given the recent escalation of armed conflict and calls from the international community for a ceasefire, dialogue and a lasting peaceful settlement, Scotland should again offer to host further discussions if that would be welcomed. My experience in helping organise the visit to Scotland and in a number of Scottish delegation visits to the South Caucuses is that there is enormous goodwill there, and elsewhere, towards Scotland.

It’s not that this country has particular answers or easy fixes to protracted international problems, but it is seen as an excellent location for discussions, which is neutral and welcoming. We have growing national democratic institutions, first-class academic expertise, NGOs active in the field like Beyond Borders and a range of capable and committed people who have been active in internationally focussed organisations like the John Smith Memorial Trust, LINKS and Remembering Srebrenica.

Scotland has a lot to offer diplomatic efforts around the world. Peace and reconciliation must be a major strand of our foreign policy as we move closer to independence. An early step would be the creation of a Scottish Centre for Peace and Reconciliation, which could co-ordinate the work of the Scottish Government, Scottish Parliament, NGOs and academia with the international community and multilateral organisations. Independence is not just about making improvements at home but working to create a better world.