ROLES ARE CHANGING
by Aram Abrahamyan

Aravot
October 16, 2008 Thursday
Armenia

New developments are probably expected in the Karabakh
settlement. Those will become apparent in the near future, as
today [Azerbaijani President] Ilham Aliyev will officially "get
established again" in his presidential office (it would have been a
great exaggeration to speak about an election in this case). Although
the co-chairs of the [OSCE] Minsk Group always say that Armenia’s
and Azerbaijan’s peoples and the leadership of these countries should
solve the issue themselves, it is, however, clear that this is mostly a
diplomatic formula. If Russia, the USA and Europe have come to a final
and perfect consensus in this issue, our two countries are facing
serious challenges. The question is whether this consensus has been
reached or not. Naturally, I do not have the answer to this question,
but there have been some signs that the roles of superpowers in our
region have changed since August this year [Russian-Georgian conflict].

It seemed half a year ago that Russia was the major advocate of
preservation of the existing situation and the status quo. However,
the Russian-Georgian war showed that the Russian Federation (probably
due to excess income from gas and oil) feels so confident and strong
that it can go for not freezing the regional problems, as was the
case before, but settling those to its own benefit. Russia acted
exactly the same way in the issue of South Ossetia and Abkhazia
– spoiling relations with the USA to some extent and receiving
Europe’s actual support. This does not mean at all that our strategic
partner will settle the Karabakh issue in the same (military) way –
such a scenario is excluded in practice. However, this means the
following: the three mediator countries [Russia, France and the USA]
usually announce unanimously that "we are interested in the speediest
settlement of the issue" and so on, but at the same time at least one
of these countries "mimics" to us or the Azerbaijanis that what they
say officially are empty words and that their actual intentions are
different. We or the Azerbaijanis are planning a course of our actions
accordingly. Nowadays no such hints will be made, at least by Russia.

One should not conclude from all this that nothing depends on Armenia
or Azerbaijan. If the public of our countries expect a "pro-Armenian"
or "pro-Azerbaijani" solution, then it is very probable that the
settlement will remain in the dead end: if any proposal or its
component is made public, political forces will receive extensive
opportunities to continue the issue in the internal political "rear"
and portray the government as "betrayers of the nation". In this
case, the establishment of peace will be postponed indefinitely once
again. It is hard to say who benefits from this. It is unlikely that
it is our two countries’ peoples.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress