RUSSIAN-AZERBAIJANI DEAL. IS GAS THE PRICE FOR KARABAKH?

Haykakan Zhamanak
April 18 2009
Armenia

Intensive efforts resume to settle the Karabakh conflict

Once again this process is progressing without Armenia, and
of course, without the Nagornyy Karabakh (NK) authorities’
participation. Yesterday in Moscow the presidents of Russia and
Azerbaijan, Dmitriy Medvedev and Ilham Aliyev, held a meeting. The
latter had arrived on the eve of a previous day on an official two-day
visit to the capital of the Russian Federation. At the meeting at
the Barvikha residence the Karabakh conflict settlement, the sale
of Azerbaijani gas to Russia and Russian weapons to Azerbaijan were
discussed. It is worth mentioning that the inclusion of all those
issues into the Russian-Azerbaijani negotiations was well-planned
since all discussed issues interrelate with the Nagornyy Karabakh
problem settlement.

After the negotiations, the two presidents made a notable statement
on the Nagornyy Karabakh problem settlement. Dmitriy Medvedev,
particularly, announced that the process of Karabakh conflict
settlement should, first of all, be based on the international rights
and formula adopted by the UN and OSCE. Medvedev stressed that Russia
wanted to have the utmost progress in the settlement of the Nagornyy
Karabakh issue.

In order to have an idea, e.g. what it means to "settle on the basis
of the UN formulae", let me remind you that so far the UN Security
Council has adopted four formulae (in addition to the formulae adopted
by the General Assembly at the beginning of March 2008), according
to which the Armenian armed forces should immediately withdraw from
the occupied Azerbaijani territories and Nagornyy Karabakh should go
back under the jurisdiction of Azerbaijan. To put it simple, Medvedev,
using a subtle diplomatic language, makes it clear that the Armenian
forces should withdraw from the occupied territories adjacent to
Nagornyy Karabakh. And Moscow wants to do this quickly. Medvedev’s
words that Russia expects to reach the utmost progress lead us to
the above conclusion.

And to what extent Ilham Aliyev liked the position and the probable
promises of the Russian president, who is incidentally considered
to be the military strategic ally of Armenia, one can judge from
his (Aliyev’s) speech in reply. He thanked Medvedev "for his
efforts to bring closer the positions of the sides in the Karabakh
negotiations". Aliyev went on to express his hope that "since
the sides’ positions have come closer, the conflict will find its
resolution quite quickly". It is obvious that the Azerbaijani president
was so satisfied with Medvedev’s position that he expressed his
appreciation and hoped that "his aspiration" would come true very soon.

And what steps would be taken for all these to come true and when and
where becomes clear from the Russian sources which run that within the
framework of the forthcoming international economic forum to be held
in St Petersburg in June, a tripartite meeting is scheduled between
Dmitriy Medvedev, Serzh Sargsyan and Ilham Aliyev at the initiative
of the Russian side at which the Karabakh conflict settlement will
be discussed.

But before that Dmitriy Medvedev "has invited" Serzh Sargsyan to
Moscow. According to Russian media reports, Serzh Sargsyan will pay
an official visit to Russia on 23 April. The same sources also report
that right after the meeting of the foreign ministers of the Black Sea
Economic Cooperation organization member countries held in Yerevan
on 16 April, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the meeting
with Serzh Sargsyan informed him of the upcoming meeting initiated by
Moscow and naturally got his agreement to participate. So, Medvedev
invited Sargsyan to Moscow "to give instructions" on his (Sargsyan’s)
position at the Prague meeting between the presidents of Armenia and
Azerbaijan on 7 May and moreover on his position at the tripartite
meeting in June.

We cannot but mention the fact that before organizing a tripartite
meeting in St Petersburg Medvedev "invites" first Aliyev and comes
to some agreements with him and afterwards Sargsyan to face the fact
of already reached agreements with Aliyev. And why Medvedev is so
"magnanimous" towards Aliyev could be judged from their statements
according to which the sides could come to agreement over the
sale of Azerbaijani exported gas at European prices to Gazprom
next month. It is quite obvious that Aliyev promised to generously
"reward" the Kremlin for its pro-Azerbaijani position. According
to Kommersant daily, in reply to Aliyev’s generosity the issue of
selling Russian antitank, anti-ballistic and anti-artillery systems
is under discussion. In the past, the Kremlin abstained from taking
the Armenian aspect into consideration.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress