WITHOUT DOWNSIZING THE FORMAT

At the end of March the III Nuclear Security Summit took place in the Hague (Netherlands) attended by  the presidents and heads of state of many countries. Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev made a speech at the plenary session, in which he said that Azerbaijan was actively cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in boosting measures aimed at nuclear safety and is supporting the efforts of the UN within the framework of the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism.

 President Ilham Aliyev noted with a feeling of regret that, owing to Armenia's occupation of 20 per cent of Azerbaijan's territory and the ethnic cleansing that has taken place there, Baku has no opportunity to monitor that part of the country. As a result of this, the conditions are being created for trans-national organised crime, the illegal transportation of fission materials, as well as the burying by Armenia of radioactive waste there on the temporarily occupied territories. Azerbaijan's president also drew attention to the risks for the entire region of the obsolete equipment at Armenia's Metsamor nuclear power plant built almost 40 years ago, which, although its designed operating term has expired, Yerevan intends to go on exploiting up to 2026.

Ilham Aliyev met with his counterparts within the framework of the summit: Turkish President Abdullah Gul, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, as well British Prime Minister David Cameron and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

Azerbaijan's president also met with co chairmen of the [Organisation for Security and Co-operation (OSCE)] Minsk Group and had a brief conversation with Armenia's president, Serzh Sargsyan, in the corridors of the Hague summit. The American co-chairman of the Minsk Group, James Warlick, reported this in his micro-blog on Twitter. Although the conversation between the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia has not been confirmed by official sources, Warlick's report has not been refuted. Thus the conclusion can be drawn that this conversation really did take place, but was very brief and contained little of value. This is probably why Warlick pessimistically asks the rhetorical question in his micro-bloc: "The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan had a conversation in the Hague. Are they really continuing to seek ways of establishing peace in Karabakh?"

As we can see, James Warlick is persisting in his striving to become one of the adherents of the new twitter diplomacy. It has come to such a point that Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry spokesman Elman Abdullayev also appealed to the American co-chairman of the Minsk Group on Twitter to be cautious in his approach to public pronouncements regarding the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict. His announcement goes on to note that the co-chairing countries acting as mediators in the talks on the settlement process in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict are obliged to restore justice, which means forcing Armenia to observe the norms and principles of international law, to which it continues to manifest a lack of respect.

But Mr Warlick is continuing to flood the social networks with his ambiguous tweets, in one of which he wrote that "Today I have been corrected that the conflict is between Nagornyy Karabakh and Azerbaijan. Nevertheless, we desire a peaceful settlement for all sides." Immediately the question arises of who "corrected" Warlick, in such a way that he was not embarrassed to write about it in his microblog? In accordance with the status of this high-ranking American diplomat only his immediate boss, the US Secretary of State or his deputies and assistants can "correct" him. If Warlick really is just passing on the ideas and moods which are floating around in the corridors of the American State Department, then perhaps the productiveness of American mediation in settling the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict needs a rethink, at least while the present bosses are in power in the White House and the State Department. As far as the wishes demonstrated by the US representative are concerned, which are aimed at conducting a negotiating process between Baku and Nagornny Karabakh, then this type of proposals is based on an insufficiently in-depth knowledge of the history of this issue. 

We shall recall in this connection that the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict did not begin yesterday and has been going on now for a quarter of a century. Back at the time of the first discussions within the framework of the CSCE [Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe] (later the OSCE), Armenia and Azerbaijan were officially recognised as the parties involved. Besides, there are two interested parties - the Azerbaijani and the Armenian communities of Nagornyy Karabakh. The "2 plus 2" format proposed by US Secretary of State James Baker in 1992 was adopted by the foreign ministries of Azerbaijan and Armenia, and then became an instititution within the framework of the Minsk Group, going down in history as the "Baker rules" [a set of negotiation process principles]. For Warlick's information, all the sides indicated took part in the negotiating process initially.

When Robert Kocharyan, a native of Nagornyy Karabakh and one of its separatist leaders came to power in Armenia as a result of a coup against President Levon Ter-Petrosyan, he himself excluded the Armenian community of Nagornyy Karabakh from the negotiating process, taking upon himself the right to represent its interests. After this, in the course of their visits to the region, mediators from the Minsk Group restricted themselves solely to occasional meetings and being briefed on the talks by the leaders of the Armenian and Azerbaijani communities of Nagornyy Karabakh, and the main dialogue developed along Yerevan-Baku lines. 

But Warlick and people sharing his opinion can rationally object that the existing negotiations' format has not lead to any positive outcome over the long years. So, why can't the format be transformed in the interests of this matter to allow the separatist leadership of Nagornyy Karabakh to join in the direct dialogue with Baku. Firstly, however, in the early stages of the talks the involvement of the Armenian and Azerbaijani communities did not lead to any kind of positive outcome. Secondly, experience of similar conflicts in the republics of the former Soviet Union makes one sceptical when assessing the potential of direct dialogue between Baku and the separatist leadership of Nagornyy Karabakh. One doesn't have to look far to find pertinent examples . For many years now  attempts have been made achieve a settlement of  the  conflict in Pridnestrovie by means of dialogue between Kishinev and Tiraspol with Russia, Ukraine, the USA, the European Union, the OSCE acting as mediators, without any result at all. Georgia also spent many years conducting talks with the separatist regimes in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but with no result either. After the war of 2008, Georgia began quite reasonably to assert that Russia is the party occupying her territory and military issues need to be resolved with her. Washington expresses its understanding and support for the stand taken by official Tbilisi [Georgian capital], just as it does with regard to Russia's annexation of Crimea, while at the same time directly trying to urge Baku to enter into direct dialogue with Nagornyy  Karabakh. There is little logic in that.

It is possible that adopting Warlick's proposals would undermine the quite gentle  pressure being imposed on Armenia as a country which has violated the norms of international law and existing resolutions of the UN Security Council, and, although it may be indirect, it would give some legitimacy to the separatist regime in Nagornyy Karabakh. But the negotiating process itself relating to the settlement of the conflict would not be speeded up at all, but would be set back. So, Warlick's stance may correspond to the wishes of the influential Armenian lobby in the USA, but it is not worth thinking that it is of interest to Baku.

They are well aware in Azerbaijan that not only the leaders of the Armenian separatists in Nagornyy Karabakh, but also the leadership of Armenia itself, can only to a very small extent be regarded as independent political figures. Rather they look like commandants appointed by Moscow and governors of the "outposts". Possibly, Baku should not put its trust in the mediation efforts of the Minsk Group, but it is worth thinking that, instead of entering into a rather unproductive dialogue with the Armenian politicians who are essentially Russian minions, no matter how difficult that might be, it should enter into talks with the party which is really taking the decisions on conflicts in the former Soviet republics, namely Russia.

For Warlick's information, in Moscow there are not only [politician Vladimir] Zhirinovskiy-type provocateurs and crude loud-mouthed soldiers like the secretary general of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation [of the Commonwealth of Independent States] [Nikolay] Bordyuzha, who refer to Azerbaijan disdainfully and support Armenia in the capacity of an ally of Russia in the Southern Caucasus. There are sufficient influential politicians and intellectuals there who would take a completely objective and balanced stance with regard to the issue of a Nagornyy Karabakh settlement. Thus, recently a member of the Russian president's State Council for international relations, Maksim Shevchenko, in an interview to the "Vestnik Kavkaza"["Caucasus Herald"], said that it is quite inappropriated to draw parallels between Crimea and Nagornyy Karabakh. "It should not be forgotten that the Azerbaijani nation does not just consist of Turks; it includes Caucasian nations of Albanian descent, among them the Lezgins  and many other peoples. The Nagornyy Karabakh khanate is the native habitat of these peoples who went on to make up the Azerbaijani nation and call themselves Azerbaijanis. Therefore, their expulsion from Nagornyy Karabakh is a crime, and, only after they have been able to return to their native land, should there be any talk of holding a referendum. Unless the refugees are able to return to the territory of Nagornyy Karabakh, any referendum will be illegal," the expert noted.

Moscow's policy and attitude to the Nagornyy Karabakh issue is an ambiguous one. After turning down the association agreement with the European Union and joining the Customs Union, Armenia is tied to Russia sufficiently firmly. Now, in order to attract Azerbaijan to its side as well, the Kremlin may try to liberate a number of Azerbaijan's occupied territories in exchange for a guarantee by the sides that they will renounce the use of force against one another.  This would not only consolidate Russia 's positions in the Southern Caucasus, but would allow it to present itself as a peace-making country following the annexation of Crimea that shocked the world. I recall that after years of war with Georgia, in August 2008, almost immediately the adoption of the Mairdorf statement of President Aliyev and President Sargsyan, the first joint statement throughout the years of conflict, was initiated by [former] Russian President Medvedev, and then serious efforts were made to achieve progress in settling the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict. 

It is obvious that the efforts of some of the co-chairman of the Minsk Group to get the talks out of an impasse are insufficient. Are the presidents of France, the USA and Russia willing to take upon themselves the function of moderator of the Armenian-Azerbaijani summit talks, as Jacques Chirac and Dmitriy Medvedev did? This is an open and rather rhetorical question. What is clear is that a breakthrough in the settlement of the conflict cannot be counted on by lowering the level of the negotiating format to the separatist leadership of Nagornyy Karabakh, but, on the contrary, by raising it so that world class politicians are involved in the dialogue. 

Meanwhile, it is being announced on the OSCE website that the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia, Elmar Mammadyarov and Edward Nal-bandyan, are to have a meeting in Moscow in April to prepare for talks between the presidents of the two countries.