Category: Regions

By Aza Babayan in Moscow and Tigran Avetisian

The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan pledged to step up the prolonged search for a peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict but did not announce any concrete agreements after weekend talks hosted by their Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev.

Serzh Sarkisian and Ilham Aliev met in a tête-à-tête format and were later joined by Medvedev at the Meiendorf Castle outside Moscow on Sunday amid fresh international hopes for a breakthrough in Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks mediated by Russia, the United States and France

“The presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia agreed to continue work, including during further contacts on the highest level, on agreeing a political resolution of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh and ordered their foreign ministers to intensify further steps in the negotiating process in coordination with the co-chairs of the OSCE’s Minsk Group,” the three leaders said in a joint declaration read out by Medvedev.

The declaration stressed the importance of continued efforts by the group’s American, French and Russian co-chairs to work out the basic principles of a Karabakh settlement acceptable to the conflicting parties. But it only vaguely alluded to a framework peace accord that was formally put forward by the co-chairs in November 2007.

Armenia and Azerbaijani are understood to have agreed to most of the key points of the proposed settlement. The mediators hoped before the Moscow talks that the two sides will overcome their remaining differences before the end of this year.

The mediating troika, including U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza, held separate talks with Aliev and Sarkisian at Meiendorf later on Sunday. No details of those talks were made public and the mediators issued no joint statements afterwards.

Speaking to RFE/RL just before those talks, Yuri Merzlyakov, the Minsk Group’s Russian co-chair, described the trilateral declaration as a “historic” document that will speed up the peace process. He noted that Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders have jointly put pen to paper for the first time since the signing in May 1994 of a Russian-mediated truce that stopped the war in Karabakh.

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry appeared to downplay the document’s significance, though. “One should not look for anything new in the signing of the document,” a ministry spokesman, Khazar Ibrahim, told journalists in Baku on Monday, according to the Trend news agency. “Negotiations are still going on and their significance is reflected by the declaration. The groundwork needs to be laid for the transition to the next phase of the negotiations.”

A senior official in Yerevan seemed in a more buoyant mood. Eduard Sharmazanov, a spokesman for the governing Republican Party of Armenia, pointed to the declaration’s emphasis on a “political settlement” of the Karabakh conflict. “This runs counter to bellicose statements that were made by Azerbaijani officials,” he told RFE/RL.

Sharmazanov also pointed out that the declaration makes clear that the Minsk Group will remain the main mediating body in Karabakh talks. He said this disproved opposition allegations that Sarkisian is ready to let Armenia’s arch-rival Turkey take on a mediating role in the peace process.

Armenia’s main opposition alliance, meanwhile, declined to comment on the Moscow talks on Monday. Levon Zurabian, a senior member of the Armenian National Congress, told RFE/RL that the top leader of the alliance, Levon Ter-Petrosian, will issue a special statement on Tuesday.

The Declaration On Regulating the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict signed by the presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia following their talks in Moscow on November 2 can be regarded as a victory for Armenia in three key respects.

First, the three presidents reaffirmed their shared commitment to seeking a political solution to the conflict “on the basis of the norms and principles of international law and of the decisions and documents adopted within that framework,” and with the stated objective of “creating a more healthy situation in the South Caucasus.”

In other words, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who has previously warned on numerous occasions that if mediation by the Minsk Group, created by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE), fails to yield a solution to the conflict, Azerbaijan will have no option but to resort to the use of military force to bring Nagorno-Karabakh under the control of the central government, has formally pledged not to begin a new war.

Second, the declaration stresses the importance of the ongoing mediation effort by the OSCE Minsk Group, and specifically of the so-called Madrid Principles, the basic blueprint for resolving the conflict.

In other words, the declaration effectively precludes any effort by Turkey to promote an alternative peace proposal that might be more in line with Azerbaijan’s vision of the optimal solution than are the Madrid Principles. Visiting Yerevan two months ago, Turkish President Abdullah Gul affirmed Turkey’s readiness to “assist” in resolving the Karabakh conflict.

And third, the three presidents agreed that the search for a peaceful solution should be accompanied by “legally binding international guarantees of all its aspects and stages.”

From Yerevan’s viewpoint, the primary weakness of the so-called Madrid Principles is that they require Armenia to relinquish its most important bargaining chip and withdraw from the seven districts of Azerbaijan bordering on Nagorno-Karabakh that it currently controls before any decision has been made on the future status of the unrecognized republic vis-a-vis the central Azerbaijani government in Baku. That issue is to be decided by means of a referendum that may not take place until years after the Armenian withdrawal.

‘Confidence-Building Measures’

Many Armenians are therefore concerned that, having regained control of the seven districts, the Azerbaijani government might then block the holding of the planned referendum.

The Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutiun threatened on October 31 to quit the coalition government if President Serzh Sarkisian betrays “national interests” by agreeing to cede the occupied territories. One day earlier, on October 30, a group of prominent Armenian intellectuals and public figures announced the launch of a new movement, named Unification National Initiative, that will similarly actively oppose any territorial concessions to Azerbaijan.

The proposed “legally binding international guarantees” are presumably intended to prevent any such perfidy on Baku’s part, and thus reduce domestic political pressure on Sarkisian. The final point of the declaration similarly stresses the importance of “confidence-building measures.”

The international guarantees would presumably also encompass commitments by various states to provide international peacekeepers to be deployed in the seven liberated districts and the strategic Lachin corridor linking Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, too, can be pleased with the outcome of the November 2 talks, insofar as the declaration affirms a commitment by Russia to a positive role, promoting peace and stability in the South Caucasus in the wake of the August war with Georgia.