ARMENIA: KARABAKH SUMMIT DELIVERS NO BREAKTHROUGH FROM YEREVAN’S VIEWPOINT

EurasiaNet
Nov 5 2008
NY

Armenian officials have expressed general satisfaction with the
results of the November 2 meeting in Moscow involving the presidents
of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia, but many observers in Yerevan doubt
that the summit will produce a breakthrough in the Nagorno-Karabakh
peace process. Most analysts cite a lack of specifics in the joint
declaration signed by the three leaders as a sign that significant
progress cannot occur quickly.

Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev sat down with his Armenian and
Azerbaijani counterparts, Serzh Sargsyan and Ilham Aliyev, at the
Meiendorf Castle official residence outside Moscow amid fresh hopes
for the signing of a framework peace agreement on Karabakh before the
end of the year. Their joint declaration announced no such agreements,
however, with Aliyev and Sargsyan only pledging to seek a "political"
settlement and to "intensify further steps in the negotiating
process." They also affirmed the Minsk Group of the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), co-chaired by France, Russia
and the United States, will continue to spearhead the peace process.

Armenia’s Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian described the talks as
"constructive" and "productive." "The declaration is not an agreement,
but it is important because it noted the importance of a peaceful
settlement of the Karabakh conflict and continued mediation by the
Minsk Group’s co-chairs," he told Armenian state television on November
4. Nalbandian did not comment on the likelihood of the conflicting
parties agreeing to a set of basic settlement principles that were
formally put forward by the mediators in November 2007.

"The meeting could not have resulted in agreement," Aleksandr
Iskandarian, a well-known pundit managing the Yerevan-based Caucasus
Media Institute, told EurasiaNet. "The meeting was not even supposed
to produce any serious outcome."

Iskandarian suggested that the main motive behind Medvedev’s decision
to host the Armenian-Azerbaijani summit was to burnish Russia’s
reputation in the West, an image tarnished by its recent war with
Georgia. "After what happened in Abkhazia and South Ossetia Russia
wanted to show that it can behave constructively in other cases,"
he said.

According to Hakob Badalian, a commentator for the online journal
Lragir.am, the signing of the Armenian-Azerbaijani declaration was
an unsuccessful attempt to paper over the failure of the Moscow
summit. "It would be quite undesirable for Russia if the trilateral
meeting was not different in any way from previous Armenian-Azerbaijani
meetings," Badalian wrote on November 3. The purpose of the declaration
was thus to underline the summit’s "particularity," he said.

"That meeting has had no historical significance except for the
symbolic fact that the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan have signed a
joint document for the first time since the 1994 ceasefire agreement,"
168 Zham, an independent Yerevan newspaper, editorialized. The
pro-government paper Hayots Ashkhar went further, saying the Moscow
talks demonstrated that "it is desirable, but still not possible to
bring the process of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resolution to a
final conclusion at this stage."

But former President Levon Ter-Petrosian, the top leader of Armenia’s
main opposition alliance, claimed the opposite on November 4, telling
the A1Plus.am news service that the Moscow declaration amounts
to Aliyev’s and Sargsyan’s official acceptance of the so-called
"Madrid principles." Ter-Petrosian predicted that the two presidents
will likely sign the framework peace accord in December. He earlier
cited an impending "denouement" in the Karabakh peace process as the
main reason for his decision to suspend his year-long campaign of
anti-government demonstrations in Yerevan.

The principles in question were the main topic of the
Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations even before the Minsk Group co-chairs
formally submitted them to the conflicting parties one year ago during
an OSCE summit in Madrid. [For background see the Eurasia Insight
archive]. They call for a gradual settlement of the conflict that
would involve the withdrawal of Armenian forces from at least six of
the seven Azerbaijani districts around Karabakh that were partly or
fully occupied during the 1991-1994 war.

In return, Karabakh’s predominantly Armenian population would be able
to determine the disputed region’s status in a referendum to be held
some time in the future. This provision does not seem to sit well
with Azerbaijani leaders. As he was sworn in for a second term on
October 24, President Aliyev reiterated that his country would not
accept Karabakh’s loss.

Sargsyan, on other hand, made clear, in remarks broadcast by Armenian
state television two days later, that the conflict would remain
unresolved unless Azerbaijan "recognizes the Nagorno-Karabakh people’s
right to self-determination." In what might be a sign of lingering
Armenian-Azerbaijani disagreements on this pivotal issue, the Moscow
declaration makes no explicit reference to the Madrid principles,
saying only that the parties should take into consideration their
November 2007 contacts with the mediators.

Another major hurdle to a peace deal has been the fate of Kelbajar, one
of two Azerbaijani districts sandwiched between Karabakh and Armenia
proper. According to Armenian sources privy to the Minsk Group process,
former President Robert Kocharian insisted that Armenian withdrawal
from Kelbajar begin only after the Karabakh referendum, meaning such
a drawback could be years, even decades away. Azerbaijan rejected
Kocharian’s position, the sources add. Whether Sargsyan agrees with
his predecessor’s view on the matter is not known.

The incumbent Armenian president will face strong domestic opposition
to the return of occupied territories, even if Azerbaijan agrees to the
proposed referendum. Hard-line nationalist groups, within and outside
his government, are increasingly speaking out against any territorial
concessions to Baku. One of them, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation
(ARF, also known as the Dashnak Party), has threatened to pull out of
the governing coalition if Sargsyan goes along with the peace formula
proposed by the Minsk Group. Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian leadership
is also understood to be against the proposal.

The recent upsurge in Russian diplomatic activity over Karabakh has
raised fears in Armenian nationalist circles traditionally sympathetic
to Russia. They have speculated that Moscow may be turning its back
on Armenia and trying to win over Western-leaning Azerbaijan as
part of its new strategy of boosting Russian influence in the South
Caucasus. "To that end, [the Russians] need to force Armenia into
making essentially unilateral and absolutely unacceptable concessions
on the Karabakh issue," the ARF weekly Yerkir wrote on October 24.

For analyst Iskandarian, such speculation says more about the
Armenian opinion-makers’ "propensity to panic" than about Russia’s
true intentions. He believes that Russian and Western pressure on
the conflicting parties is still not strong enough to change the
Karabakh status quo. "There is some pressure, but it has so far been
outweighed by resistance from within the region," he said. "I don’t see
any reasons why this situation should drastically change anytime soon."

Editor’s Note: Emil Danielyan is a Yerevan-based journalist and
political analyst.