MOSCOW REACTIVATES EFFORTS IN CONNECTION WITH AZERBAIJAN
Ajdar Kurtov
WPS Agency
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
March 18, 2009 Wednesday
Russia
HIGHLIGHT: RUSSIA IS READY FOR COMPROMISES IN TRANS-DNIESTER AND
NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT SETTLEMENT; Russia likes to pretend that
it remains the main locomotive force in conflict-settlement efforts
in the Commonwealth. Life shows a different story.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov began a two-day visit to
Azerbaijan. Departing Moscow, Lavrov said Russia was prepared to
second a "compromise agreement" on Nagorno-Karabakh between Yerevan
and Baku and even become its guarantor.
The Russian-Azerbaijani relations were coldly reserved for years
on end, interspersed every now and then by diplomatic assurances
of willingness for neighborly warmth. For quite obvious reasons,
Moscow and Baku offered different answers to the question of what had
caused this "wintry co-existence" in the first place. Their answers
notwithstanding, it is clear that conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh played
a major part in the status quo because of Azerbaijan’s certainty that
Russia had backed Armenia in the conflict.
Ducking the old problem is becoming increasingly more difficult for
Moscow, these days. The disintegration of the USSR sparked lots of
conflicts on its territory. Some of them were settled, but others
driven deep and left to smoulder. Political scientists call these
later latent conflicts. It is clear that the day must eventually come
when willingness to try and offer a solution is displayed by some
third party, one previously uninvolved in the endless and pointless
diplomatic meetings. This is exactly what happened in August 2008.
As a result, Moscow’s political rhetorics with regard to the
Crimea and Sevastopol, Trans-Dniester region, and Nagorno-Karabakh
changed and became different from what it had been before August
8. Moreover, the Kremlin even indicated willingness to alter its
previously unalterable positions in the matter of conflicts in the
Trans-Dniester region and Nagorno-Karabakh. Formally, it does not
look like a concession, not for the time being at least. Russian
politicians go out of their way to present the matter in the light
that will show them still being the major locomotive force in the
conflict-settlement efforts. Unfortunately for them, they are not
being particularly convincing.
At the very least, things in general seem to be progressing toward
the following: Tiraspol is being forced to accept the variant outlined
in the law on the status of autonomy Moldova adopted in 2005. As for
Nagorno-Karabakh, efforts are made to persuade it to accept a solution
that requires some specific steps from Stepanakert and Yerevan and
but some vague promises of return gestures from Baku.
The idea to deploy Russian peacekeepers between the Armenian
and Azerbaijani forces discussed nowadays is less unequivocal
than its authors like to pretend. It looks quite attractive
in theory. In real life, however, the Russians will have to be
quartered on the territories currently occupied by armed forces of
Nagorno-Karabakh, in the areas where the latter built fortifications
that preclude Azerbaijani military operations for the time being. Since
peacekeepers cannot operate on minefields, all these areas of defense
Nagorno-Karabakh developed will have to be dismantled. Will the
Armenians go for it? It is unlikely, particularly as the president of
Azerbaijan once again announced that independence of Nagorno-Karabakh
is out of the question both in the course of the talks now and in
the future.