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Tag: Nagorno-Karabakh

  • Russian, Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers begin meeting in Moscow

    Russian, Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers begin meeting in Moscow

     

     
     

    [ 31 Oct 2008 19:53 ]
    Baku. Lachin Sultanova–APA. Foreign ministers of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia Sergei Lavrov, Elmar Mammadyarov and Edward Nalbandyan have started their meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia in Moscow.

    The ministers will make announcement for the journalists after the meeting, diplomatic sources told APA.
    On Saturday the ministers will hold consultations with OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs Yuriy Merzlyakov (Russia), Bernard Fassier (France) and Matthew Bryza (USA) and special representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk.
    The meetings have a character of preparation for the negotiations between the presidents of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia Dmitriy Medvedev, Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan on November 2 in Moscow on the settlement of Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

  • Western Mediators To Join Armenian-Azeri Summit In Moscow

    Western Mediators To Join Armenian-Azeri Summit In Moscow

     

     

     

     

     

    By Ruben Meloyan

    U.S. and French mediators will travel to Moscow ahead of Sunday’s meeting of the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents hosted by Russia, Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian announced on Thursday.

    Nalbandian said he and his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov will meet the American, French as well as Russian diplomats co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group in the Russian capital on Saturday. He said the co-chairs could also meet Presidents Ilham Aliev and Serzh Sarkisian after their trilateral meeting with Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev.

    Medvedev has initiated the Armenian-Azerbaijani summit amid renewed international hopes for a near-term solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The Russian president and other officials have expressed hope that Aliev and Sarkisian will bridge their remaining differences on a framework peace accord proposed by the Minsk Group.

    The Russian initiative has fuelled talk of Moscow seeking to sideline the West in the Karabakh peace process as part of its efforts to boost its influence in the South Caucasus after the recent war with Georgia.

    However, the initiative was welcomed by the United States on Wednesday. “We are pleased by this initiative that Moscow is undertaking. We hope that the initiative succeeds. We are monitoring it very closely,” U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

    “We hope that the meeting of the presidents will give yet another serious impetus to the acceleration of the negotiations,” Nalbandian said for his part. He said the success of the Moscow talks depends on whether Azerbaijan will embrace mutual compromise. The Armenian side is ready to make its share of the concessions, he said.

    “We can find a settlement with Azerbaijan,” Nalbandian told a news conference. “That will be possible if Azerbaijan expresses political will and opts for an appropriate settlement, instead of taking disruptive steps in various international organizations and making parallel statements.”

    Sarkisian said at the weekend that the Karabakh dispute can be resolved only if Azerbaijan recognizes the Karabakh Armenians’ “right to self-determination.” But Aliev insisted on Friday that Baku will never accept Karabakh’s secession from Azerbaijan.

    Nalbandian also dismissed opposition claims that Sarkisian is re-orienting Armenia’s foreign policy towards the West in hopes of securing U.S. and European support for his rule. “If somebody notices some change in our relations with Russia, I can assure them that that change can only reinforce, expand and deepen our strategic and allied relations with Russia, “ he said.

  • Foreign Minister Nalbandian visits London

    Foreign Minister Nalbandian visits London

    On October 27 Edward Nalbandian started his visit to the United Kingdom.

    Edward Nalbandian and Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom David Miliband discussed a broad range of bilateral, regional and international issues.

    Turning to bilateral relations, Minister Nalabndian said Armenia attaches great importance to the development of comprehensive and all-embracing relations with Great Britain – one of the leading countries of Europe, and his visit is an evidence of Armenia’s determination.

    Minister Nalbandian said the Armenian-British political dialogue and the trade-economic relations have a great potential for development, and the activation of the Armenian-British relations in the above-mentioned sphere is one of the primary issues of cooperation between the two countries.

    Minister Nalbandian and Foreign Secretary Miliband discussed in detail the settlement of regional conflicts. In this context Minister Nalbandian presented Armenia’s stance on the resolution of the Artsakh issue. He expressed hope that the parties can reach the resolution of the issue in case there is corresponding political will.

    At the request of David Miliband, Edward Nalbandian presented the opportunities of normalization of the Armenian-Turkish relations, underlining that the aim of the process is their full normalization and Armenia is resolute to continue the steps in this direction. The British Foreign Secretary highly assessed Armenia’s steps targeted at the improvement of relations with Turkey.

    Armenia’s Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian and British Minister of State for Europe Caroline Flint discussed the Armenia-European Union cooperation, particularly the process of implementation of the Action Plan of the European Neighborhood Policy, the bilateral cooperation between Armenia and Great Britain within the framework of the ENP. Ministers Nalbandian and Flint turned to regional issues, especially the perspectives of normalization of relations, as well as the activation of bilateral relations.

    Minister Nalbandian visited the House of Lords, where he met with members of the Armenian-British Friendship Group. The meeting was attended by representatives of the main political parties of the United Kingdom – the Laborites, the Conservatives and the Liberals, as well as other parties.

    On the same day, Minister Nalbandian visited Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), where he made a speech on “Regional Security in the Caucasus – an Armenian Perspective”. Political analysts, representatives of research centres and universities, diplomats accredited to London, representatives of UK official bodies, journalists attended the meeting. After the speech Edward Nalbandian answered to the number of questions on Armenia’s foreign policy.

    Afterwards Armenian Foreign Minister left for the Headquarter of BBC Radio – World Service and thus became the first high-ranking Armenian official who visited BBC Headquarters. Edward Nalbandian gave an interview to the correspondents of BBC World Service.

    Edward Nalbandian’s next meeting was with the representatives of UK’s Armenian community in Great Britain. In the course of the meeting which lasted more that two hours Edward Nalbandian presented the main directions and priorities of Armenian foreign policy, perspectives of the settlement of Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) issue, the steps undertaken by the Government for the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations. Speaking on Armenia-Diaspora relations Minister Nalbandian said to the representatives of British Armenian community that Armenian authorities seek to cooperate with the Diaspora to a definitely new level and establishment of the Ministry of Diaspora is one of the steps towards that goal. Edward Nalbandian answered a lot of questions of British Armenian Community’s concern.

    The last meeting of Armenian Foreign Minister was with Sir Brian Fall, Special Representative of the United Kingdom for  the South Caucasus. Minister Nalbandian and Ambassador Fall had a detailed discussion on the steps aimed at development of bilateral relation in different areas, recent regional developments and perspectives of settlement of the conflicts.
    On October 28 Minister Nalbandian concluded his visit to UK and returned to Yerevan.     

  • Sarkisian Vows Public Debate On Karabakh

    Sarkisian Vows Public Debate On Karabakh

     

     

     

     

     

    By Emil Danielyan and Tigran Avetisian

    President Serzh Sarkisian pledged to initiate an “active” public debate on how to resolve the conflict with Azerbaijan and accused his opponents of exploiting the issue after inspecting frontline positions of Nagorno-Karabakh’s army over the weekend.

    Sarkisian traveled to Karabakh to attend military exercises conducted by Karabakh Armenian forces. He then visited sections of the heavily militarized Armenian-Azerbaijani line of contact east of the disputed territory.

    Speaking to Armenian Public Television afterwards, a uniform-clad Sarkisian acknowledged that internationally sponsored efforts to resolve the Karabakh conflict have entered an “active phase.” “I strongly believe that we will enter a period of much more active public discussions,” he said. “Discussions are always useful but they must center only on the interests of the Armenian people. We have invested too much effort into the settlement of the Karabakh problem to turn a blind eye on or to ignore instances of exploitation [of the issue.]”

    “We are achieving an important historical objective, and if someone is trying to pursue other interests, then that is not moral,” he added.

    It was an apparent reference to opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian’s October 17 speech in which he accused Sarkisian of being willing to “put up Karabakh for sale” in return for earning the West’s support for his continued rule. Ter-Petrosian claimed that Sarkisian is even ready to agree to Russia’s replacement by Turkey at the OSCE Minsk Group helm. Newspapers supporting Ter-Petrosian have also seized on Turkish President Abdullah Gul’s reported claims that Sarkisian himself asked Ankara to mediate in Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations.

    Sarkisian denied the claims attributed to Gul, insisting that he believes Turkey can only “assist” in the Karabakh peace process. “Yes, I am convinced that Turkey can assist and, I think, is now assisting in the process of the Karabakh conflict resolution,” he said. “President Gul’s [September 6] visit to Yerevan, the continuation of Turkish-Armenian negotiations is a very good example of solving very difficult problems.” Turkish contribution to Karabakh peace will be even greater if Ankara opens the Turkish-Armenian border and establishes diplomatic relations with Yerevan, he added.

    Sarkisian further described as “very legitimate” Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s efforts to host the next, potentially decisive, meeting of his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts. But he would not say when that meeting could take place and what its chances of success are.

    “A resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is possible if Azerbaijan recognizes the Nagorno-Karabakh people’s right to self-determination, if Nagorno-Karabakh has a land border with Armenia, and if international organizations and leading nations guarantee the security of the Nagorno-Karabakh people,” stated the Armenian president.

    Sarkisian’s newly reelected Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliev, repeated on Friday that Baku will never recognize Karabakh’s secession from Azerbaijan.

    The U.S., Russian and French diplomats co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group were due to visit the conflict zone this week in line with their pledges to step up the search for Karabakh peace after the October 15 presidential election in Azerbaijan. But the group’s French co-chair, Bernard Fassier, said late last week that the trip has been postponed.

    Analysts in Yerevan were on Monday divided over possible reasons for the delay. Manvel Sargsian, a Karabakh expert at the Armenian Center for National International Studies, attributed it to Medvedev’s initiative. “It looks as though a new situation has arisen after that statement and the parties are chewing over their next steps,” he said.

    But Gagik Harutiunian, director of the Noravank Foundation, believes that the United States and France have no problem with Russia’s unilateral push for a Karabakh settlement. “The situation is such that they may have chosen not to meddle in the ongoing process to avoid disrupting it,” he said.

    Richard Giragosian, a Yerevan-based U.S. analyst, likewise saw no U.S.-Armenian disagreements on Karabakh. “Moscow and Washington have actually moved even closer to each other in the Minsk Group,” he told RFE/RL.

  • RUSSIA TAKES INITIATIVE IN INTERNATIONAL PUSH FOR KARABAKH PEACE

    RUSSIA TAKES INITIATIVE IN INTERNATIONAL PUSH FOR KARABAKH PEACE

    By Emil Danielyan

     

     

    Russia has taken the center stage in international efforts to resolve the Karabakh conflict, which could yield a breakthrough before the end of this year. President Dmitry Medvedev is expected to host a potentially decisive meeting of his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts next month. Moscow may thus be trying to sideline the OSCE’s so-called Minsk Group on Karabakh, which it has long co-chaired with the United States and France.

    When he paid an official visit to Yerevan on October 21, Medvedev publicly urged Presidents Serzh Sarkisian of Armenia and Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan to meet in his presence in Russia. The Karabakh dispute was high on the agenda. “I hope that the three presidents will meet in the very near future to continue discussions on this theme,” he told a joint news conference with Sarkisian. “I hope that the meeting will take place in Russia” (Regnum, October 21). He noted that the Karabakh peace process now seemed to be “in an advanced stage.”

    Medvedev discussed what the Kremlin described as preparations for the Armenian-Azerbaijani summit in a phone call with Aliyev the next day (Interfax, October 22). Konstantin Zatulin, a Kremlin-linked Russian pundit, told Armenian journalists afterward that the crucial summit would likely take place in early November; but neither conflicting party has yet confirmed the meeting, let alone announced any dates for it. Aliyev’s chief foreign policy aide, Novruz Mammadov, has said only that it was “possible” (Trend news agency, October 22). Armenian officials have not commented on the matter at all.

    Medvedev announced his initiative following unusually optimistic statements on Karabakh peace prospects that were made by his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. In an October 7 interview with Rossiiskaya Gazeta, Lavrov spoke of a “very real chance” to end the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict in the coming weeks. “There remain two or three unresolved issues that need to be agreed upon at the next meetings of the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan,” he said. He added that the future of the so-called Lachin corridor, which is the shortest overland link between Armenia and Karabakh, is now the main stumbling block in the peace talks. Three days later, Lavrov held a trilateral meeting with his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts on the sidelines of a CIS summit in Bishkek.

    Many analysts in the South Caucasus and the West have long contended that Russia was uninterested in a Karabakh settlement, lest it lose leverage against Azerbaijan and, even more, Armenia, its main ally in the region. Peace with Azerbaijan, they have argued, would reduce the significance for Armenia of maintaining close military ties with Russia and make the Armenian economy less dependent on Russian energy supplies. Medvedev’s desire to host the crucial Aliyev-Sarkisian encounter is, however, a clear indication that Karabakh peace is not necessarily incompatible with Russian goals and interests in the region, especially if Moscow plays a key role in a multinational peace-keeping force that would have to be deployed in the conflict zone.

    Armenia is rife with speculation that Moscow is trying to cajole Azerbaijan into agreeing to a Russian troop presence and pursuing a more pro-Russian policy on other issues, notably the transportation of Caspian oil and gas to the West. “To that end [the Russians] need to force Armenia into making essentially unilateral and absolutely unacceptable concessions on the Karabakh issue,” Yerkir, a Yerevan weekly controlled by the governing Armenian Revolutionary Federation party, wrote on October 24, reflecting the growing opinion among local observers.

    Sarkisian appeared to rule out such concessions when he said after his talks with Medvedev that the peace process had to proceed on the basis of the framework peace agreement that was formally put forward by the Minsk Group’s U.S., Russian, and French co-chairs in November 2007. The document calls for a phased settlement of the conflict that would start with the liberation of at least six of the seven Azerbaijani districts around Karabakh that were fully or partly occupied by Armenian forces during the 1991-1994 war. In return, Karabakh’s predominantly Armenian population would be allowed to determine the disputed territory’s status in a future referendum.

    According to U.S. officials privy to the talks, Baku and Yerevan essentially agreed to this peace formula as of late last year and only needed to work out some of its details. Political turmoil in Armenia that followed the February 2008 presidential election and the ensuing toughening of Azerbaijani leaders’ Karabakh rhetoric, however, have dealt a serious blow to the mediators’ efforts to negotiate a peace deal. Those efforts gained new momentum after the Russian-Georgian war, with all three mediating powers stressing the danger posed by unresolved ethnic disputes in the region.

    However, the sharp deterioration of U.S.-Russian relations resulting from the Georgia crisis called into question Moscow’s and Washington’s ability to continue to work together on Karabakh. Medvedev’s seemingly unilateral initiative raised more such questions. Washington has yet to react officially to the move. Incidentally, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried flew to Yerevan ahead of the Russian’ president’s visit. Fried said after talks with Sarkisian on October 17 that the signing of a Karabakh peace accord before the end of the year was “possible” but “not inevitable” (RFE/RL Armenia Report, October 20).

    Meanwhile, Bernard Fassier, the Minsk Group’s French co-chair, told the Azerbaijani APA news agency on October 21 that he and his American and Russian opposite numbers planned to visit Baku and Yerevan jointly next week; but two days later he said that the trip had been postponed, ostensibly because of the co-chairs’ conflicting work schedules.

  • Aliev Again Rules Out Independence For Karabakh

    Aliev Again Rules Out Independence For Karabakh

     

     

     

     

     

    By Emil Danielyan

    Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev reiterated that his country will never come to terms with the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh but stopped short of threatening to win back the region by force as he was sworn in for a second term in office on Friday.

    “Karabakh will never be independent,” news agencies quoted him as saying during his inauguration ceremony in Baku. “Azerbaijan will never recognize it. Neither in five, nor in ten, twenty years. Never.”

    Aliev said Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity is not the subject of long-running Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks which have made considerable progress in recent years. But he did not mention details of the U.S., Russian and French mediators’ existing peace proposals that seem to uphold the Karabakh Armenians’ right to legitimize the dispute territory’s de facto secession from Azerbaijan in a future referendum.

    The three co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group hope that Aliev and his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sarkisian will meet soon and finally accept those proposals. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev publicly offered to host the meeting as he visited Yerevan earlier this week. Medvedev reportedly discussed the matter with Aliev by phone on his return to Moscow. No dates have been set yet for the potentially decisive Armenian-Azerbaijani summit, though.

    “We are still interested in the continuation of negotiations and our hopes have not faded yet,” said Aliev. “We still believe that the negotiations may lead to a just settlement.

    “The opposite side must come to terms with reality. And the reality is that today it is difficult and, I would say, impossible to compete with Azerbaijan.”

    But while pledging to further boost military spending and the strengthen the Azerbaijani army, Aliev voiced no direct threats to resolve the Karabakh dispute by force if the Minsk Group process fails. He said instead that Azerbaijan will regain control over Karabakh by capitalizing on its “economic might” and international law.

    Aliev regularly threatened the Armenians with war before the recent military conflict between Georgia and Russia. Armenian leaders claim that Georgia’s disastrous attempt to retake South Ossetia will discourage Baku from trying the military option in the foreseeable future. A senior U.S. official likewise said last week that the likelihood of renewed fighting around Karabakh has decreased since the Russian-Georgian war.