LAVROV IS GOING TO BAKU
by Manvel Manvelyan

Haykakan Zhamanak
March 12 2009
Armenia

The main responsibility for resolving the Nagornyy Karabakh
conflict lies with the Armenians and Azerbaijanis, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov, who is going to Baku on a two-day visit,
told Azerbaijani media yesterday. Lavrov said that the Russian
position on the conflict was already known. "Russia is ready to
support a compromise agreement that would satisfy all parties to
the conflict. In this case, Russia would act as the guarantor of
the settlement," he said. Lavrov said that the common approaches
of Russia and Azerbaijan to the situation in the Caucasus and the
desire to make it a region of stability and peace were laid out in
the Friendship and Strategic Partnership Declaration signed by the
[Russian President] Dmitriy Medvedev and [Azerbaijani President]
Ilham Aliyev in Baku on 3 July 2008.

Despite the fact that Lavrov was trying to demonstrate Moscow’s
neutrality and saying that the main task of settling the conflict
is on the Armenians and Azerbaijanis, he, meantime, was quoting
the well-known Russian-Azerbaijani declaration, under which Moscow
recognized the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and promised not
to make steps that could undermine it. In other words, it implied
that the Armenians and Azeris should reach a settlement on the basis
of the principle of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity.

Another notable fact: via Lavrov, Moscow warns Baku that even after
the settlement, the region should not get out of the zone of Russian
influence. Probably, Azerbaijan’s possible membership of NATO is
implied. By the way, in his yesterday’s interview, Lavrov downplayed
Baku’s concerns that the setting up of the Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO) rapid reaction forces could pose a threat to
Azerbaijan because Armenia is a CSTO member and Azerbaijan is not.

He emphasized that those forces will act only in case of an aggression
against a member state. It turns out that Lavrov is implying that
if military operations resume in the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict
zone, the CSTO forces would not intervene because Nagornyy Karabakh
is considered Azerbaijani territory, and Azerbaijan is not a CSTO
member. In return for all these, the Kremlin expects from Azerbaijan
all of Azerbaijan’s gas exports, which will allow Russia to control
Azerbaijani gas exports to Georgia, Turkey and Europe. Gazprom made
such an offer in summer 2008. Now Lavrov is leaving for Baku to get
Azerbaijan’s response ahead of the Caspian Sea summit. Russia’s further
policies in the South Caucasus will largely depend on that answer.