DIM LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

The talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia have been going for 16 years, with virtually no result. Every time the peaceful settlement process reaches a crucial stage, it is disrupted by the Armenian side. First the country's president gets overthrown and then a terrorist attack is launched on the Armenian parliament; after that, Armenia refuses to accept proposals from the international mediators agreed upon after several years of meticulous work by the diplomats.

In recent years, Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev has taken the initiative in the Armenian-Azerbaijani settlement. In two years he has hosted seven meetings between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan in which the two parties have reached significant, if not decisive, agreements. The first of them was the Mayndorf declaration signed on 2 November 2008. The sides reached a second agreement on 27 October 2010 in Astrakhan.

The talks between the presidents of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia in Astrakhan lasted several hours. "These meeting are difficult and are sometimes accompanied by harsh polemic, but talks are always better than an active phase of conflict," said Dmitriy Medvedev, adding that the talks had managed to reach some specific agreements.

The presidents agreed on a joint statement about an immediate exchange of prisoners and the return of bodies with the assistance of the OSCE Minsk Group and the International Committee of the Red Cross. In addition, according to the Russian president, the parties agreed that they would make an attempt to secure "a coordinated version of the general principles of conflict resolution" by the OSCE summit to be held in Astana on 1-2 December.

At the same time, the Russian president stressed that there are still uncoordinated issues, "but the parties have the desire to reach agreement on textual differences".

By the end of this year, we will know the results produced by this desire. For the time being, the only thing that is clear is that time is working against Armenia and recognition of this fact by Yerevan could accelerate the settlement process. This is confirmed by the reaction of Armenian experts to the outcome of the Astrakhan meeting. Comments by Armenian politicians and political scientists are built entirely on the consolation that the declaration adopted in Astrakhan will contribute to the restoration of mutual trust, reduce the likelihood of war and so on in this vein.

That is to say Armenia is already beginning to accept the realities of which it has long been warned. In October, another such warning was delivered by the influential US journal Foreign Policy. The journal writes that in the event of a resumption of war over Nagornyy Karabakh, Azerbaijan will have an advantage.

The article notes that during the 1988-1994 war, Armenia occupied Nagornyy Karabakh and surrounding areas, that Azerbaijanis were expelled from these territories and the vacant land was thus populated by Armenians.

"However, these events occurred during the collapse of the Soviet Union. If the war resumes today, everything could be different," the journal writes, recalling that while Azerbaijan's GDP is $46.13 billion, Armenia's only amounts to $11.92 billion.

Further, Baku has established good relations not only with its neighbours - Russia, Iran, Georgia and Turkey, but also with countries such as the USA and China. "Armenia is getting less sympathy. Armenia, which hosts Russian military bases in its territory, shows indifference towards Georgia and has no ties with Turkey," says Foreign Policy.

For our part, we should add that, in 2011, Azerbaijan's military spending will exceed $3 billion, while the entire state budget of Armenia is only slightly higher than $2 billion. Over the years, this imbalance will increase rapidly. Moreover, as noted by Ilham Aliyev, "in contrast to Armenia, we are doing this with our own money, we do not depend on one country, we do not owe a single country and we are not begging anybody".

Armenia, meanwhile, might lose the trust of the international community and financial injections from outside because of large-scale corruption scandals involving Armenian criminal groups.

"My meetings with top European officials demonstrate that international organizations are running out of patience, and the day of reckoning is drawing near for the Armenian authorities," said Armenia's former president, Levon Ter-Petrosyan.

The strengthening of international pressure on the government is proved by recent corruption scandals in the US, Russia and Malaysia, in which Armenia is mentioned as a centre of drug trafficking and other major international crimes, he said.

Another important factor is demographics. "Today, Azerbaijan's population is more than 9 million. In Armenia, there is mass migration from the country, because people are tired of the intolerable conditions prevailing there," said President Ilham Aliyev at a cabinet meeting.

Incidentally, according to statistics disclosed by Zoya Tadevosyan, a member of the Central Election Committee, 25,000 families left the country in 2010. According to her, people are forced to leave the country due to "the desperate socioeconomic situation, failed foreign policy and the current authoritarian regime".

Commenting on the Astrakhan meeting of the presidents, a number of media drew attention to one further point. A Voice of America report noted that the meeting in Astrakhan coincided with the unveiling of a monument to Heydar Aliyev in the city. "Some experts see this as some success for Azerbaijani diplomacy," the report said.

The Armenian portal LRAGIR also drew attention to this event, saying that at the meeting in Astrakhan, Medvedev was trying to play not for Armenia, but for Azerbaijan as the favourite in this weak and vulnerable game.

LRAGIR writes that the meeting in Astrakhan could be considered damaging to Armenia from the diplomatic point of view even before it started. "It turns out that Ilham Aliyev was invited to the unveiling of a monument to his father, and they thought that they would use the opportunity and also invite Serzh Sargsyan. Serzh Sargsyan, of course, did not say no to Dmitriy Medvedev, because, as he himself admitted, he finds it hard to talk to the Russian president, let alone say no," the article says.

Comment, as they say, is unnecessary. It remains to wait for the OSCE summit in Kazakhstan. Perhaps we will see then at least a dim light at the end of the long Nagornyy Karabakh tunnel.