NAGORNO-KARABAKH AT THE TOP LEVEL

WPS Agency
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
April 22, 2009 Wednesday
Russia

Russia want to take the lead in reconciling Azerbaijan and Armenia

BYLINE: Yevgeny Gospodinov

RUSSIA WILL HOST A MEETING FOR ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN; President
Dmitri Medvedev held talks yestersay with President Ilham Aliyev
of Azerbaijan. Besides energy issues, on which the two countries
have almost no differences, the presidents also discussed the
Nagorno-Karabakh situation.

President Dmitri Medvedev held talks at his Maindorf residence
yestersay with President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan. Besides energy
issues, on which the two countries have almost no differences, the
presidents also discussed the Nagorno-Karabakh situation. Medvedev
promised Aliyev to make every effort to regulate this difficult but
"solvable" problem. But Moscow isn’t getting involved in peacekeeping
just out of the kindness of its heart. According to our sources,
Russia is insistently requesting Aliyev to curtail military technology
cooperation with Georgia.

After noting that cooperation with Azerbaijan is developing quite
rapidly, Medvedev let it be understood that we can cooperate even
more intensively, especially in the gas sector. Aliyev announced
that his country plans to increase oil throughput volumes for the
Baku-Novorossiisk pipeline. Aliyev also thanked Russia for its
attempts to reconcile the positions of Armenia and Azerbaijan on
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict regulation.

The Nagorno-Karabakh situation was one of the key issues discussed
by the two presidents at their private meeting. Russia is preparing
to host an Armenian-Azeri summit on Nagorno-Karabakh; it will take
place at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum. In the presence of
President Medvedev, the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan are
supposed to discuss regulation of the long-running conflict, and
(ideally) reach some sort of agreement – as they did last autumn in
Moscow (Serge Sargsian and Ilham Aliyev signed a joint declaration
on Nagorno-Karabakh).

By securing another meeting for the two leaders on Russian territory,
Russia is aiming to confirm its position as the chief mediator between
Baku and Yerevan. Medvedev said as much yesterday: "Russia is prepared
to carry out its own mandate. We have always tried to facilitate
this process, and if such contacts are continued – and there is no
alternative to doing so – I’m sure that this problem can be resolved,
based on the interests of both peoples."