"WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY"

Presidents Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan, with the participation of their Russian opposite number Dmitriy Medvedev, are to hold negotiations on 25 June. It will already be their ninth meeting in this format. The preceding meeting took place in Sochi on 5 March this year, and the sides noted some degree of rapprochement after its results were summarized.

The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group amended the Madrid principles in order to enable their adoption by the parties to the conflict. The international community is striving to use the window of opportunity which still remains open in 2011. After all, parliamentary, and then presidential, elections are to take place in Armenia in 2012. Presidential elections are also scheduled in the Minsk Group co-chair countries. Then in 2013, presidential elections will take place in Azerbaijan. During the election campaigns politicians are disinclined to make decisions that might cause a mixed reaction among their opponents and voters. To push the sides towards a compromise, mediator nations are actively involved in the process at the level of presidents and heads of foreign ministries.

The Russian, US and French presidents made their famous statement on the Karabakh conflict at the G8 summit in Deauville, which boils down to a declaration of the inadmissibility of both new war and the status quo. The mediator states urged the parties to the conflict to accept the Madrid principles and start working on a peace treaty directly. To hear the US position, Armenian Foreign Minister Edvard Nalbandyan and then Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov were invited to Washington.

Commenting on the results of his conversation with his US counterpart, Elmar Mammadyarov said: "Ms Clinton's position is that the work on the basic principles which were proposed by the OSCE Minsk Group should be completed as soon as possible and work start on a peace treaty. I fully agree with her. The principles which will guide us forward are already known. Let us call them a 'road map'. The work on a peace treaty should begin soon."

He also said that agreeing on the basic principles does not yet mean the achievement of a peace treaty. "We must avoid a situation in which we have to work for another 70 years on a peace treaty after the principles have been agreed on. If the principles are agreed, the work on the treaty must also be finalized within six to 12 months," Elmar Mammadyarov said.

The fact that deploying peacekeeping forces in the conflict zone has already become a subject for discussion testifies that the regulation process should unfold rapidly. Their deployment in Nagornyy Karabakh was included in the list of the basic principles for regulation of the conflict, Elmar Mammadyarov said. There are no plans to use as peacekeeping forces military contingents of the Minsk Group co-chair countries and countries which border on the region.

In early June, the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group visited the region. After the results of the visit were summarized, a working meeting of the Azerbaijani, Armenian and Russian foreign ministers took place on 11 June in Moscow to overcome the remaining differences. The sides succeeded in bringing their positions closer together on a number of key issues pertaining to the fundamental principles of regulation of the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict, mass media report. Now Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov has to visit Paris for consultations with the Foreign Ministry of France, one of the co-chair countries of the Minsk Group. The intensity of the talks indicates that the process of preparation for the meeting in Kazan is thorough and the goal is achieving concrete results.

Diplomats and officials are quite sparing in their comments. During their visit to the region, the co-chairs of the Minsk Group issued only brief statements for journalists.

"The process in Nagornyy Karabakh has intensified, and results are to be expected soon," the co-chairman from Russia, Igor Popov said, stressing that some of the issues still require further work and coordination. The foreign ministers of the parties to the conflict are working on this, and it is possible that this work will be completed before the Kazan summit.

US diplomat Robert Bradtke noted that the Minsk Group aims to resolve the conflict in a peaceful way, which is why the co-chairs deem necessary frequent meetings of representatives of the parties to the conflict. "A unique possibility for a peace settlement has emerged and should not be missed because there is no other solution. War cannot be a solution. War wouldn't lead to the conflict resolution and the return of refugees. The United States, like the other co-chair countries of the OSCE Minsk Group, stands for peaceful resolution of the conflict," he said.

"We hope that during the Kazan meeting, the sides will approve the final version of the document which was proposed for the regulation. I mean the document which was proposed to the parties about three months ago in Sochi," Bernard Fassier, French co-chair of the Minsk Group, said after his meeting with Bako Sahakyan.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov demonstrate cautious optimism regarding both the latest efforts by the Minsk Group and the upcoming meeting in Kazan. Novruz Mammadov, head of the Presidential Administration's international section, noted in conversation with journalists that, "in light of the statement that was made during the meeting of the Russian, US and French presidents in Deauville, we can say that some positive steps can be taken toward regulation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict in Nagornyy Karabakh." He predicts that a protocol or some type of agreement might be signed after the meeting of the presidents in Kazan. Even opposition party officials have chosen a wait-and-see attitude. However, many analysts and media commentators are openly sceptical and say that the excessive Armenian claims and lack of desire among the mediators to urge Armenia to observe the norms of international law doom the Kazan summit to another failure which the participants will try to hide by signing an unimportant statement, devoid of content.

The situation in the Armenian camp is different. Officials are very cautious about the prospects of peaceful regulation on the basis of the Madrid principles. Foreign Minister Edvard Nalbandyan is an exception, who sometimes says that the Armenian side adopted the Madrid principles long ago and that it is Baku that is slowing down the process. Sometimes he presents the progress of the talks as though the main issue here is the status of Nagornyy Karabakh, whereas the liberation of the occupied territories is of secondary importance.

Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan made a clearer statement on 8 June in Vienna: "We are interested in regulation of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations." Then he noted that the OSCE Minsk Group for regulation of the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict is close to success, and the statement by the US, French and Russian presidents testifies to this. He said that the Armenian side agrees the basic principles which the statement contains and is willing to manifest its political will and achieve an agreement in a short period of time.

Against the backdrop of these statements, opposition politicians give away the true sentiments of the Armenians. For example, the ARF Dashnaktsutyun opposition party (ARFD) is worried about the Deauville statement by the presidents of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing countries, the head of the ARFD parliamentary group, Vahan Hovannisyan, said at a press conference in Yerevan on 6 May. He said that the Deauville statement envisages that both sides must work on the Madrid principles. "Any modification of this document is unacceptable for us," he said, adding that the concessionary position of the Armenian authorities on the Karabakh issue cannot be effective.

Leader of the Heritage parliamentary party, Raffi Hovannisyan, said that "Armenia must recognize the independence of the Nagornyy Karabakh republic, abandon the Madrid principles as a basis of the talks on the Karabakh issue, and cancel its signature to the Armenian-Turkish protocols."

Chairman of the New Times Party Aram Karapetyan maintains that foreign forces intend to create a domestic political atmosphere which would enable the Armenian authorities to make some concessions on the Karabakh issue, and then the Armenian-Turkish border will be opened. He also said that the Armenian public would not accept this and, therefore, new war is unavoidable.

Known for his irreconcilable position, Armenian political analyst Igor Muradyan qualifies the Madrid principles as a category of events that are tantamount to a "national catastrophe for Armenia". A more respected political analyst, Richard Kirakosyan, is of an opinion that is not so different from Muradyan's. He predicts further delays in decisions which might really result in the liberation of the occupied territories, and urged a commitment not to use force and to perpetuate the status quo.

Armenian and foreign analysts note that President Serzh Sargsyan is manoeuvering and, as a fallback option for the time when there is no alternative to signing the Madrid principles, might agree to hold early parliamentary elections. The resumed dialogue and the policy of compromise and concessions to the Armenian National Congress, headed by Levon Ter-Petrosyan, might be steps towards that ultimate objective. However, Ter-Petrosyan, for his part, continues to criticize the ruling regime on the one hand, but on the other hand, he effectively keeps acting as its pillar if Serzh Sargsyan decides to adopt the Madrid principles. After all, they are very similar to the second "phased" plan of the Minsk Group, and Armenian radicals, led by Robert Kocharyan, drove Ter-Petrosyan out of power in the mid-1990s precisely because he adhered to that plan.

The opponents of the peace treaty do not stop at military provocations either. For example, the Armenian military killed Agcabadi District resident Elmar Piriyev on 3 June, who was herding his livestock near the village of Camanli in Agdam District, near the contact line separating the two sides' troops. Earlier, on 8 March, an Armenian sniper killed nine-year-old Fariz in the village of Orta Qarvand when he was playing in the yard outside his home. One gets the impression that no effort is spared to provoke Azerbaijan and thwart the meeting in Kazan.

For now, Baku is limiting itself to flexing its muscles. On 2 June, military exercises were conducted by an armoured brigade on the front line to test the combat characteristics of the upgraded T-72 tanks and other armoured hardware and Azerbaijani-made armaments. Preparations are under way for the military parade of 26 June which, depending on the outcome of the meeting in Kazan, might or might not become a show of force by Azerbaijan. The co-chair nations of the Minsk Group are bound to see that the situation in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict has reached a critical point, when postponing the decisions in favour of war or peace is impossible. This is why in Kazan we should expect major efforts to sign a document that will become an important step toward peace. So, Kazan might become the Dayton of the Karabakh settlement.