WHEN MEDVEDEV’S RESOURCES EXHAUST

168 Zham
Oct 30 2008
Armenia

A tripartite meeting of the Armenian, Azerbaijani and Russian
presidents will take place on 2 November in Moscow. The press services
of both Russian and Armenian presidents reported this yesterday
[29 October].

"According to the arrangement achieved, a meeting between Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, devoted
to the settlement of the Karabakh conflict, will take place on 2
November in Moscow, and Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev Enhanced
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press service of the Russian president says. Medvedev announced the
intention to organize a meeting between the presidents of the three
countries in Moscow during his visit to Yerevan last week.

Thus, Russia has managed at least at this stage to "neutralize"
the Western initiative in the Karabakh settlement, which is currently
represented by "Turkish mediation". It is difficult to state definitely
what will be the circumstances of this "turn" for Armenia. However,
one can suppose that Russia made some concessions for Aliyev’s
participation at the Moscow meeting. (Let us recall that a possibility
of deployment of Russian peacekeepers in the liberated territories,
which Azerbaijan objects, is currently being discussed in the framework
of the "Russian initiative" on the Karabakh settlement.)

However, this does not at all mean that Turkey will give up its
intention of mediation, or as the Armenian side says, of "assistance"
in the settlement of the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict. It is not
accidental that almost concurrent with the statement made by the
Kremlin, the Turkish government announced a forthcoming meeting of
the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents in Helsinki. The most painful
thing in this situation is that in practice the Armenian government
does not have a resource to turn down any of the sides and takes part
in all meetings which Aliyev consents to participate in.