FUTURE OF S. CAUCASUS LARGELY DEPENDS ON UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN AZERBAIJANI, ARMENIAN LEADERS: RUSSIAN EXPERT
Today
Nov 20 2009
Azerbaijan
Doctor of Historical Sciences, senior researcher at the Russian
Academy of Sciences Institute of World Economy and International
Relations Alexander Krilov shared his views on the upcoming meeting
of Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents in Munich, Nov. 22.
"I would not limit significance of this meeting only to the Karabakh
problem. It is much more, and is dictated by the radical changes in
the Caucasus region and in the international arena," he said.
"The Madrid principles provide a return of so-called "security zone"
to Azerbaijan, granting interim status to Nagorno-Karabakh, security
guarantees and self-government, keeping the corridor between Armenia
and Nagorno-Karabakh, defineding final legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh
in future based on legally binding will, the right of all internally
displaced persons and refugees to return to their former places of
residence and, finally, international guarantees of security and
peacekeeping operations," Krilov said.
Krilov also believes that "the way of mutual concessions is
unrealistic, because neither society nor the political elite in
Azerbaijan and Armenia are ready to the proposed mutual concessions."
"There is no even a minimum confidence between them without which
compromise is impossible. Therefore, the key factor is the external
pressure on both sides, the paragraph about international security
guarantees and peacekeeping operations," Krilov added.
"Political scientists have already begun to speculate about transfer
of the Caucasus, "into the Kosovo team" of American diplomacy. This
is further evidence of the high degree of outside forces’ interest
in deployment of their troops to Azerbaijan and Armenia. One can
endlessly speculate about in what form the Kosovo scenario would be
applied to in the South Caucasus. Maybe it will not be applied at all."
"But it is clear that the deployment of troops of other countries
severely limits sovereignty of Azerbaijan and Armenia. In this case
problems of the region will be dictated not by the parties to the
conflict, but other states which actually happens in the Balkans and
other conflict regions. Can one believe that the interests of foreign
states is solely peaceful settlement and that they make no attempt
at a convenient pretext to establish political and military control
over the strategically important region? This would be an extreme
political naivety," he said.
"In fact, the question is whether Azerbaijan and Armenia remain as
independent subjects of international relations or their sovereignty
will be severely limited. I think that Azerbaijan and Armenia have
common interests in this situation more than ever before. They are
equally interested in the fact that they does not become a plaything in
the hands of external forces and in preserving their own independence
and sovereignty," Krilov said.
In fact, future destiny of the South Caucasus is being determined now.
Yet the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia have an opportunity to
influence developments. Future of the South Caucasus largely depends
on whether the leaders will succeed to reach understanding in the
forthcoming Munich meeting," Krilov said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress