RUSSIA TAKES INITIATIVE IN INTERNATIONAL PUSH FOR KARABAKH PEACE
By Emil Danielyan
The Jamestown Foundation
Monday, October 27, 2008
Russia has taken the center stage in international efforts to resolve
the Karabakh conflict, which could yield a breakthrough before the
end of this year. President Dmitry Medvedev is expected to host
a potentially decisive meeting of his Armenian and Azerbaijani
counterparts next month. Moscow may thus be trying to sideline the
OSCE’s so-called Minsk Group on Karabakh, which it has long co-chaired
with the United States and France.
When he paid an official visit to Yerevan on October 21, Medvedev
publicly urged Presidents Serzh Sarkisian of Armenia and Ilham Aliyev
of Azerbaijan to meet in his presence in Russia. The Karabakh dispute
was high on the agenda. "I hope that the three presidents will meet
in the very near future to continue discussions on this theme," he
told a joint news conference with Sarkisian. "I hope that the meeting
will take place in Russia" (Regnum, October 21). He noted that the
Karabakh peace process now seemed to be "in an advanced stage."
Medvedev discussed what the Kremlin described as preparations for the
Armenian-Azerbaijani summit in a phone call with Aliyev the next day
(Interfax, October 22). Konstantin Zatulin, a Kremlin-linked Russian
pundit, told Armenian journalists afterward that the crucial summit
would likely take place in early November; but neither conflicting
party has yet confirmed the meeting, let alone announced any dates
for it. Aliyev’s chief foreign policy aide, Novruz Mammadov, has said
only that it was "possible" (Trend news agency, October 22). Armenian
officials have not commented on the matter at all.
Medvedev announced his initiative following unusually optimistic
statements on Karabakh peace prospects that were made by his
foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. In an October 7 interview with
Rossiiskaya Gazeta, Lavrov spoke of a "very real chance" to end the
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict in the coming weeks. "There remain two
or three unresolved issues that need to be agreed upon at the next
meetings of the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan," he said. He
added that the future of the so-called Lachin corridor, which is the
shortest overland link between Armenia and Karabakh, is now the main
stumbling block in the peace talks. Three days later, Lavrov held a
trilateral meeting with his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts on
the sidelines of a CIS summit in Bishkek.
Many analysts in the South Caucasus and the West have long contended
that Russia was uninterested in a Karabakh settlement, lest it lose
leverage against Azerbaijan and, even more, Armenia, its main ally
in the region.
Peace with Azerbaijan, they have argued, would reduce the significance
for Armenia of maintaining close military ties with Russia and make the
Armenian economy less dependent on Russian energy supplies. Medvedev’s
desire to host the crucial Aliyev-Sarkisian encounter is, however, a
clear indication that Karabakh peace is not necessarily incompatible
with Russian goals and interests in the region, especially if Moscow
plays a key role in a multinational peace-keeping force that would
have to be deployed in the conflict zone.
Armenia is rife with speculation that Moscow is trying to cajole
Azerbaijan into agreeing to a Russian troop presence and pursuing a
more pro-Russian policy on other issues, notably the transportation
of Caspian oil and gas to the West. "To that end [the Russians] need
to force Armenia into making essentially unilateral and absolutely
unacceptable concessions on the Karabakh issue," Yerkir, a Yerevan
weekly controlled by the governing Armenian Revolutionary Federation
party, wrote on October 24, reflecting the growing opinion among
local observers.
Sarkisian appeared to rule out such concessions when he said after
his talks with Medvedev that the peace process had to proceed on the
basis of the framework peace agreement that was formally put forward
by the Minsk Group’s U.S., Russian, and French co-chairs in November
2007. The document calls for a phased settlement of the conflict
that would start with the liberation of at least six of the seven
Azerbaijani districts around Karabakh that were fully or partly
occupied by Armenian forces during the 1991-1994 war. In return,
Karabakh’s predominantly Armenian population would be allowed to
determine the disputed territory’s status in a future referendum.
According to U.S. officials privy to the talks, Baku and Yerevan
essentially agreed to this peace formula as of late last year and only
needed to work out some of its details. Political turmoil in Armenia
that followed the February 2008 presidential election and the ensuing
toughening of Azerbaijani leaders’ Karabakh rhetoric, however, have
dealt a serious blow to the mediators’ efforts to negotiate a peace
deal. Those efforts gained new momentum after the Russian-Georgian
war, with all three mediating powers stressing the danger posed by
unresolved ethnic disputes in the region.
However, the sharp deterioration of U.S.-Russian relations resulting
from the Georgia crisis called into question Moscow’s and Washington’s
ability to continue to work together on Karabakh. Medvedev’s seemingly
unilateral initiative raised more such questions. Washington has yet to
react officially to the move. Incidentally, U.S. Assistant Secretary of
State Daniel Fried flew to Yerevan ahead of the Russian’ president’s
visit. Fried said after talks with Sarkisian on October 17 that the
signing of a Karabakh peace accord before the end of the year was
"possible" but "not inevitable" (RFE/RL Armenia Report, October 20).
Meanwhile, Bernard Fassier, the Minsk Group’s French co-chair, told
the Azerbaijani APA news agency on October 21 that he and his American
and Russian opposite numbers planned to visit Baku and Yerevan jointly
next week; but two days later he said that the trip had been postponed,
ostensibly because of the co-chairs’ conflicting work schedules.