STRONG TIES BIND RUSSIA AND ARMENIA AT KARABAKH TALKS
Sergei Blagov 9/14/04

EurasiaNet Organization
Sept 14 2004

As Armenia and Azerbaijan prepare for tomorrow’s presidential summit
on Nagorno-Karabakh, Russia has begun to emphasize its own ties with
Yerevan, prompting Baku to question the Kremlin’s role as an objective
mediator for the conflict.

Chances for a genuine breakthrough in the September 15 talks at
the Confederation of Independent States (CIS) conference in Astana,
Kazakhstan are doubtful, but both Azerbaijan and Armenia are already
touting their respective inclinations for peace. On September 2,
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev told reporters in the province of
Naxcivan, near the Armenian border, that “[t]he fact that I have not
yet abandoned negotiations on Nagorno-Karabakh means that I believe
in their productivity,” Interfax reported. In turn, Armenian Foreign
Minister Vardan Oskanian announced at an August 30 meeting in Prague
with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov that the two sides
had made progress in laying “the foundation” for the September talks,
according to Interfax.

But that foundation is one that Baku believes should include Russia.
In August, Azerbaijan called on the Kremlin to step up its own
contributions to a Karabakh peace deal. Russia, long the region’s
heavyweight, appears to be seen by Baku as a potentially influential
counterweight to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe, whose own peacemaking efforts via the tripartite Minsk
Group have been the subject of much criticism from Azerbaijani
parliamentarians and government officials.

When Moscow’s response to Baku’s demand came, however, it took
place at a meeting with Armenia’s President Robert Kocharian —
the sixth such in the past year. At an August 20 summit in Sochi,
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that “Russia is ready
to play a role of mediator and guarantor” in the Karabakh conflict,
but noted that “[t]here have been no breakthrough decisions.”

A show of Russian support could stand Armenia in good stead at the CIS
talks. Speculation has recently mounted that Kocharian is prepared
to return the seven Azerbaijani territories it occupies in exchange
for a peace deal on Armenian-controlled Karabakh. According to one
recent opinion poll, that would place Kocharian at variance with nearly
half of Armenia’s population — a delicate situation for a leader who
withstood weeks of opposition protests earlier this spring. In a June
25 poll by the Armenian Center for National and International Studies,
45.5 percent of Armenians stated that they believe that territories
seized during the 1991-1994 war with Azerbaijan should remain under
Armenian control.

Meanwhile, Moscow appears ready to assist. Russia’s longtime
influence in the Caucasus is already under political pressure from
the US in Georgia and Azerbaijan and also under increasing economic
pressure in both Georgia and Armenia from outside energy players like
Iran. Even while expressing no official concern at reported US plans
to establish a base in Azerbaijan, Moscow has been busy reinforcing
its traditionally strong ties with Armenia.

Recent military exercises between the two longtime allies appear to
have sparked the sharpest concern in Baku. At a training base not
far from Yerevan on August 24-28, 1,900 Armenian and Russian troops
fought back an imaginary invasion and assault on Russia’s 102nd
military base at Guymri.

Despite assurances from Armenia’s army that the maneuvers are not
directed against a third country, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry has
taken a different view. Voicing concern that Russia had held war
games with “an aggressor state,” Defense Ministry spokesman Ramiz
Melikov has stated that the operations contradicted Russia’s role
as a mediator in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In November 2003,
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov described Armenia as Russia’s
“only ally in the South.”

The Russian military presence in Armenia has deep roots. A 1995 treaty
gives Russia’s military base a 25-year-long presence in Armenia,
while a 1997 friendship treaty provides for mutual assistance in the
event of a military threat to either country. Currently, there are
2,500 Russian military personnel stationed in the country. Recent
military materiel shipped to Armenia includes MiG-29 jetfighters and
S300 PMU1 air defense batteries, an advanced version of the SA-10C
Grumble air defense missile. Russia’s Federal Border Guard Service
is also deployed to guard Armenia’s borders with Turkey and Iran.

Economic ties could also fuel Azerbaijani fears of favoritism toward
its longtime rival. Armenia is heavily dependent on Russia for its
natural gas and nuclear fuel supplies. In 2002, Russia wrote off $100
million of Armenia’s external debt in return for control of five
state-run Armenian enterprises, including the Razdan thermal power
plant. Russia’s state-run Unified Energy Systems power monopoly also
controls Armenia’s Metsamor nuclear power station and hydro-power
plants under a similar debt repayment arrangement — a deal that has
placed 90 percent of Armenia’s energy system in Russian hands.

At the same time, however, divergent interests have begun to emerge,
most notably with Armenia’s aspiration to limit its dependence on
Russian energy supplies by building a $120 million, 141-kilometer gas
pipeline from Iran to Europe. Iran reportedly has agreed to supply
36 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Armenia from 2007-2027,
a plan that could undercut Russian energy companies’ own position in
the Caucasus. The plan has yet to be finalized.

Such a situation would appear likely to push Russia to forge even
closer links with Armenia to protect its own energy interests. If so,
the bid to promote Moscow as an objective mediator could be fraught
with additional difficulties.

In the meantime, with little time remaining before the summit in
Astana, the Kremlin is playing its own cards carefully. Azerbaijani
Foreign Minister Mamedyarov had little to show after an August 19
trip to Moscow to discuss Nagorno-Karabakh other than an official
statement that the Kremlin recognizes Azerbaijan’s territorial
integrity. Kocharian was treated to similarly circumspect language at
his Sochi summit with Putin. Wedged between foes Turkey and Azerbaijan,
Armenia, the Russian leader said, is in “a very difficult geopolitical
situation.”

Editor’s Note: Sergei Blagov is a Moscow-based specialist in CIS
political affairs.