RUSSIA SEEKS FELLOWSHIP
Nikolay Filchenko

Kommersant
Sept 16 2008
Russia

Moscow tries to restore its peacekeeping reputation in the region
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will hold talks today with
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in the Meindorf residence outside
Moscow. Moscow was the initiator of this summit meeting. Kommersant
has learned that Russia will propose a package of peace initiatives
for a settlement of the Nagorny Karabakh conflict to Aliyev and try
at the same time to guarantee that Baku will steer clear of Western
political and energy games.

Divide and Conquer

The meeting between the presidents had been discussed since the
beginning of the month. On September 3, they spoke by telephone, also
at Russia’s initiative. Natalia Timakova, the Russian president’s
press secretary, told Kommersant then that the two leaders had
reached an agreement in principle on high-level negotiations. Last
week, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov visited Moscow
and Medvedev and Aliyev spoke again on Sunday to agree on the agenda
for today’s meeting.

A Kremlin source called the close contact between the countries
logical, considering Azerbaijan’s role in the region. Sources in
the presidential administration say that the time for negotiations
between Medvedev and Aliyev had come even earlier. Medvedev has
met with Armenian President Serge Sargsyan twice this month, on
September 2 at presidential residence in Sochi and three days later
at the Moscow summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization,
which Azerbaijan is not a member of.

Relations between Baku and Erevan will receive particular attention
in today’s Russian-Azerbaijani talks, and specifically within the
context of a settlement in the Nagorny Karabakh conflict. In the
final declaration of the CSTO summit, it is noted that the allies are
"concerned with the growing military potential and escalation of
tensions in the Caucasus region." Many observers, including those
in Baku, think that phrase should be interpreted as a warning to
Azerbaijan, where the need to retake "territories occupied by Armenia"
is voiced from time to time. Source in the Russian Foreign Ministry
close to today’s negotiations say openly that Moscow would like a firm
guarantee from Baku that it will not consider military means to solve
the Karabakh problem either before or after the October presidential
elections there.

Moscow, which, along with France and the United States, took part
in searching for a settlement to the Karabakh conflict as part of
the OSCE Minsk group, plans to propose its own plan to Azerbaijan
and Armenia. The first point of that plan is the organization of a
meeting between Aliyev and Sargsyan in Russia with the participation
of Medvedev. Kommersant has learned from sources near the Armenian
president that Sargsyan has already approved that idea. Today Medvedev
has to obtain Aliyev’s consent. To interest the Azerbaijani president
in a meeting with the other two presidents, Moscow will propose a
discussion of a sensitive question for Baku, that is, jurisdiction
over the Lacha corridor, which connects Nagorny Karabakh with
Armenia. Specifically, they are to conciliate a operation along the
route to allow the safe movement of people and cargo along it without
transferring it to the jurisdiction of Erevan or Stepanakert.

A Weak Link

Besides peacekeeping initiatives, Medvedev has other important
topics that demand urgent discussion with Aliyev. After Russia’s
military operations against Georgia, Azerbaijan has been the subject
of increased attention from the West. High-ranking guests from
Washington are becoming common in Baku, and Aliyev even received
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney this month.

Baku was the energy capital of the region last week when it hosted
the international business forum "The Gas and Oil Potential of
Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan: Energy, Economy, Ecology. Partnership
Strategy." First Deputy Prime Minister of Azerbaijan Yagub Eyubov
assured attendees there that his country is prepared to offer its
infrastructure for deliveries of Central Asian hydrocarbons to the
West. Bypassing Russia, of course. Immediately after Aliyev’s Moscow
talks, U.S. Assistant Deputy Secretary of State Matthew Bryza, who is
cochairman of the OSCE Minsk group, will visit the Azerbaijani capital.

The West’s intensive attention to Azerbaijan does not make Russia
happy, and even more so since Azerbaijan is allied with Georgia,
which has severed diplomatic relations with Russia, through the GUAM
(Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova) organization. Therefore,
Russia is extremely interested in seeing to it that Azerbaijan
follow through on any impulses to strengthen military ties with the
West. The U.S. already offered last year to create a training camp
on the Caspian like the ones in Georgia.

A Kommersant source who manages Azerbaijani affairs at the Russian
Foreign Ministry said that one of the key topics in today’s talks
between the two presidents will be a written ban on the presence in
the Caspian region of outside armed forces. Ideally, Moscow would
like principles for activities in the Caspian to be outlined in
a convention. That convention is already being drafted. Russia
is prepared to expand its military partnership with Azerbaijan
as compensation and to fulfill its obligations to deliver armored
military equipment, parts for it and firearms.

Energy partnership is a traditional topic of talks between the Russian
and Azerbaijani presidents. A source in the Kremlin mentioned with
satisfaction that, after operational lapses in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan
pipeline during the conflict in Georgia, Azerbaijan has applied
to increase the transport of its oil through the Baku-Novorossiisk
pipeline.

An unsettled question is the volume of Gazprom’s maximum gas purchases
during the development of the second line at the Shah Deniz gas
field. That is sure to be a difficult conversation, considering
that Baku quite willingly responded to the West’s proposal that it
participate in the Nabucco project, the implementation of which has
taken on new impetus since the Russian-Georgian war.