THE RF MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING NEW IN BAKU

PanARMENIAN.Net
22.05.2007 GMT+04:00

The decision that parties arrived at were as follows; Baku decided
not to send any diplomatic notes, Russia promised to assist in the
issue of the energy supply.

The RF Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov didn’t say anything
new in Baku, and only what had already been mentioned in Yerevan
was repeated.

"Russia’s fundamental viewpoint regarding the Karabakh issue remains
unchangeable, the main responsibility for the final choice of the
resolution method depends on Azerbaijan and Armenia, as for Moscow,
in case of agreement achieved by mutual concession, it is willing to
become the guarantor of the regulation," this has been mentioned more
than once and perhaps will still be mentioned.

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ And the matter is not in Lavrov’s personality,
but in the principles of diplomacy. The truth is though, that the
visit to Baku was a little "overshadowed" with three notes from the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan concerning the Russian TV
Companies and Russian encyclopedia, yet everything went off smoothly.

For Azerbaijan, just like for Armenia, Russia remains one of the key
mediators in the Karabakh issue. "In any kind of conflict often the
history is being crunched over and over, something what unfortunately
happens to the results of World War II. It is necessary to have any
conflict is resolved in a peaceful way," stated the RF Minister of
Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov in Baku. According to his words, the
outcomes achieved by the OSCE Minsk group should be supported. "Russia
is stands up for the problem resolution within the frames of the OSCE
Minsk Group.

Moscow wants the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict be fair
and acceptable for all the parties," said Lavrov during the concluding
press-conference in Baku.

But of course the Nagorno-Karabakh problem wasn’t the only issue Sergey
Lavrov spoke about in Baku. At first the issue of energy cooperation
was being discussed during the meeting. A week before the visit of
the RF Minister of Foreign Affairs to Baku the President of Azerbaijan
had participated at Krakow Energy Summit.

Together with the President of Ukraine, Georgia and Poland Ilham Aliyev
discussed the options of realizing the ideas of the ex-President of
Ukraine Leonid Kuchma about continuing the Odessa-Brody pipe line up
to Gdansk. However Azerbaijan’s role in this very project is rather
limited. The new oil-pipe line is needed for transporting first of
all Kazakh oil. So Azerbaijan is first of all a transit country in
this project, as the country has almost run out of own oil. The truth
is, that the Krakow Summit ended with nothing, as the main potential
supplier of the alternative "black gold" for Ukraine and possibly the
Baltic countries wasn’t present at the meeting. That time Nursultan
Nazarbayev preferred meeting Vladimir Putin.

Judging from the commentaries of the Azeri press, Lavrov’s visit to
Baku was normal. The decision that parties arrived at were as follows;
Baku decided not to send any diplomatic notes, Russia promised to
assist in the issue of the energy supply. According to the political
scientist Rasim Musabekov, both Russia and Azerbaijan are interested
in the development of the political and financial relations. "But
unfortunately in politic objective moments are not as common as
subjective ones."

However regarding Azerbaijan and Russia there is the question of
allotment of the Caspian, the relationship between Iran and the
USA. Natural besides Armenia the RF wants to take control of Azerbaijan
which has lately started to threaten the International Community with
resolution of the Karabakh problem by use of force. Obviously Ilham
Aliyev’s announcements are of propagandistic nature; however for
Moscow it is better to keep all the events of the region under control.

This may be the reason why Russia is insisting on a veto in UNO
regarding the Kosovo issue, for it is well aware that the domino
effect in the Caucasus will work very fast. After all besides Karabakh
and Abkhazia there is also the issue of Chechnya, which strives for
independence by Kosovo example. In this matter Baku and Moscow are
of the same opinion unfortunately.

However, Rasim Mussabekov considers that in spite of the fact that
over the last several years some difficulties and misunderstandings
occurred between the two countries, the parties tried to come to a
mutual understanding. "In any case the relationship didn’t change
for the worse," said the political scientist.