CONSEQUENCES OF ARMENIA'S IGNORANCE

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov arrived in Moscow with a bad taste in his mouth, caused by the reluctance of the European Union to demonstrate the same principled attitude to Nagornyy Karabakh as it does to similar conflicts in other countries that are members of the "partnership".

At the Eastern Partnership summit in Riga, which was held in the run-up to the Moscow talks, Azerbaijan insisted that the declaration should also emphasize the role of the four UN Security Council resolutions about the unconditional withdrawal of Armenian troops from Azerbaijan's occupied territories. However…

"Our European partners have said it is too far and detailed, and that we would have to go through these procedures on other conflicts. But we insisted up to the last minute. We even said we might not sign up to this declaration. Then we reached a compromise: that we would make an appropriate statement that would be included in the text of the final declaration, where the situation would be described taking into account the four UN resolutions," Mammadyarov explained to Russian television.

And that's what finally happened. Precisely on the day of Mammadyarov's arrival in Moscow Azerbaijan presented this statement to the European Commission. However, no honeyed words from Riga could take away the disturbing feeling about the EU's manifested "special" - but in reality indifferent - attitude to the Karabakh problem. However, this question has definitive significance for Azerbaijan in shaping its foreign policy. As before, the attitude of Azerbaijan's foreign partners to the question of the liberation of Armenian-occupied Karabakh and the adjacent territories is crucial for Baku.

In this sense, Azerbaijan was not happy with the attitude shown by the EU countries at the Eastern Partnership summit in the Latvian capital. Moscow, on the other hand, has voiced its intention to work towards a solution to the problem, and the sides even expressed "notes of optimism" about the results of the negotiations.

It goes without saying that the problem of the occupation of Azerbaijani territories and Russia's mediatory role in resolving this problem was one of the focal subjects of the negotiations. The sides agreed that the problem had been dragging out for too long. [Russian Foreign Minister] Sergey Lavrov said no-one denies that the conflict has become too protracted. "All agree that there is a real basis for reaching agreements, it is just a question of translating this understanding to the language of agreements. We discussed approaches towards a settlement of the Nagornyy Karabakh problem in detail for several hours. The parties have all the groundworks, the co-chairs have taken into account the parties' proposals and I look at the negotiating process with increasing optimism," Lavrov said. The minister promised that Russia would continue to work actively to find mutually acceptable agreements on the conflict, both through bilateral channels and through the OSCE's Minsk Group.

Mammadyarov agreed that the conflict had gone on too long and has to be resolved, but there were still hopes for a peaceful settlement. "I share the notes of optimism that have been voiced by my colleague on this question. We have been discussing detail by detail, bit by bit, the way forward in this conflict," Mammadyarov said.

There is no doubt that against the background of the West's indifferent attitude to the Karabakh problem Russia remains the only effective force to show the capability of bringing the parties to the conflict to a common denominator. Azerbaijan is an important strategic partner of Russia's in Transcaucasia and in the Caspian region, a Russian Foreign Ministry comment states in relation to Elmar Mammadyarov's visit to Moscow. "Russia, as a co-chair of the OSCE's Minsk Group, has continued for over two decades to play an active part in a Nagornyy Karabakh settlement. Bearing in mind the geographical proximity and common history of our peoples, resolving the conflict is of paramount importance to us and is one of Russia's foreign-policy priorities," the Russian Foreign Ministry stressed.

In this sense, the appraisal of the Azerbaijani foreign minister of the talks in the Russian capital is of interest: "The main subject matter of the negotiations was Russia's absolutely clear wish to get the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagornyy Karabakh moving." Of course, much will depend on Russia's desire to influence Armenia in this direction. One way or another, the outcome of the negotiations between the Azerbaijani and Russian foreign ministers enabled some observers to make the rather bold assumption that the parties had reached preliminary agreements which could pave the way to the signing of a Grand Peace Agreement on the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict.

The way things are developing at the moment this scenario does not seem as utopian as it did a few years ago. Yes, Armenia was and is Russia's main advance post in the South Caucasus. Azerbaijan, however, offers Russia much more - strategic cooperation on an equal footing. Today, at difficult times for Russia, when the country is under pressure from western sanctions, Azerbaijan has proved that it is a reliable partner, which will not leave a neighbour in the lurch. And Russia is paying increasing heed to this. By not supporting the anti-Russian decisions of the Eastern Partnership summit in favour of the EU, Azerbaijan has proved that an old friend is better than two new ones - and even 28.

However, it is well known that even the dimmest of lights at the end of the Karabakh tunnel will blind Yerevan. As always, the probability of progress in the talks on Karabakh after the Moscow meeting of Russian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers alarmed the Armenian leaders, whose plans clearly do not include a change in the status-quo in the conflict region. Yerevan hastened to respond to the positive signals from Moscow with a typically blatant threat towards Azerbaijan. Armenia's Defence Minister Seyran Ohanyan, who was about to say that "we support a peaceful decision by way of negotiations which would lead to the formation of a dialogue between equals and an atmosphere of trust", immediately repeated the far from peace-loving words voiced earlier by his deputy, David Tonoyan, that "in the light of Azerbaijan's current armament, in our estimation the security zone around Nagornyy Karabakh is not enough".

In over 20 years of negotiations we have not been accustomed to such bloody - and at times very exotic - attempts by the Armenian leaders to stall the peace process at a time when the opportunity for a diplomatic breakthrough appears close.

Back in 1998 the perception of the Armenian President Levon Ter-Petrosyan of the pointlessness of an aggressive policy in the process of a Karabakh settlement cost him his job as president. The "Karabakh Clan", led by Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan, did not support Ter-Petrosyan's plan for a settlement, which included the demilitarization of the conflict zone and the return to Azerbaijan of a number of residential communities occupied during the fighting in 1992-94.

A year later, on 27 October 1999, in the run-up to the OSCE summit in Istanbul, where the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents intended to sign some document, there was a terrorist act in the Armenian parliament which took the lives of supporters of a rejection of Armenia's belligerent position.

Nor should one forget the meeting between the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia at Rambouillet Castle in France in February 2006, when the Armenian leader Robert Kocharyan popped into the toilet without having the grace to return to the negotiations table. 

This time, too, either as a result of hysteria, or by following their natural will, high-ranking Armenian military officials are making far from appropriate statements.

But is now no longer up to Armenia, which in reality resolves nothing in the region and watches in despair as its most important political ally strengthens ties with Azerbaijan. But threats of new territorial conquests by members of the Armenian leadership offer a chance to Russia, in the light of statements made in Moscow, to attempt to placate its presumptuous "strategic partner". Otherwise, Azerbaijan will have to.

Of significance here is the opinion of a leading Russian military expert, Pavel Felgenhauer who, in a conversation with a journalist of the Armenian "Aykakan Zhamanak" newspaper at a time of the escalation of tension in the Karabakh conflict zone last August, opened the eyes of Armenians to the unpalatable truth of the matter: "Russia has always sold weapons to warring nations. Yes, Azerbaijan has money. And then, from the strategy point of view, Russia is arming both Armenia and Azerbaijan, because we want to influence both sides. We are not just interested in Armenia, but the whole of the Caucasus, including Azerbaijan, which is strategically a more important country for Russia than Armenia."