BEFORE WEAPONS START "TALKING"…

The Nagornyy Kara-bakh settlement talks have entered their final phase. Baku and Yerevan have been visited by the OSCE Minsk Group mediators - Yuriy Merzlyakov (Russia), Matthew Bryza (USA) and Bernard Fassier (France). Their trip began with meetings in Baku with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov. Then the mediators went to Yerevan, bypassing Xankandi.

The co-chairmen themselves have no intention of commenting on the results of their visit to the region: the diplomats prefer to talk around the issue with phrases like "we discussed issues connected to the current stage of the negotiating process to settle the Karabakh conflict," "we sensed readiness to move the process forward" and so on. One thing is clear: Levon Ter-Petrosyan's resignation taught the diplomats a lesson.

However, if we consider the fact that the main purpose was to organize a meeting between the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia, then the co-chairmen's tour can rightly be called successful: both Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sarkisyan agreed to hold talks during the Davos forum. Thus the Prague process was revitalized again: talks, if we believe the co-chairmen, are continuing on the basis of the Madrid document. "I urge the public in both countries to trust their leaders. Let them believe that their leaders are engaged in discussions on the basis of their countries' national interests," said Matthew Bryza.

However, the most optimistic statements were made by Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, who said that Armenia's relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey will be settled by the end of the year. Moreover, this winter the diplomats had another reason for optimism - the "gas war" between Russia and Ukraine has increased the attention given by the European Union and the USA to "alternative" routes for energy supplies to Europe, mainly from the Caspian region. Since the pipelines run in close proximity to the contact line between the military forces, the interest in these "alternative" routes was expected to force them to pay more attention to the process of settling the Karabakh issue. In any case, it is from just this point of view that many analysts view the idea of an "eastern partnership" and the regional tour by European commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner.

Meanwhile, during this period the OSCE mission encountered a quite serious threat. Just before the co-chairmen's visit, the main political news in Azerbaijan concerned information about another "gift" of weapons worth no more and no less than 800 million dollars, which Russia handed over to its "outpost" Armenia. This was first reported by ANS TV on 10 January. Specifically, ANS quoted the head of the Russian Defence Ministry's press service, Aleksandr Petrunin, as saying that "the handover of any military hardware from the 102nd military base of the Russian Federation to the Armenian Defence Ministry is regulated by an interstate agreement". Petrunin added that any free handover of weapons was out of the question.

Later, the Azerbaijani news agency Bakililar.az published a list of arms and military hardware that Russia had handed over to Armenia: T-72 tanks, BMP infantry fighting vehicles, BTR 70/80 armoured personnel carriers, BREM-2 maintenance-recovery vehicles (based on BMP-1), Shilka and Strela missiles, Grad rapid fire systems, Acacia self-propelled artillery installations (based on T-55) and Gvozdika (based on the MT-LBU multi-purpose light carrier), Rapira cannons, Kub missiles, F-1, RGD-5 and RKG-3/3 EM hand grenades, as well as underslung grenade throwers, mortars, Kalashnikov assault rifles, night-time binoculars, TNT, land mines and so on. According to ANS TV, the types of armaments shown on the list were handed over to Armenia in 2008 under the signature of the armaments chief - the deputy commander of the North Caucasus Military District for armaments, Lt-Gen Vyacheslav Golovchenko.

As a rule, official circles decline to comment on media reports. However, this time, the Russian ambassador to Azerbaijan, Vasiliy Istratov, was invited to the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry on 12 January where he was officially required to give an explanation. The diplomat promised that the issue would be clarified. The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed that the Russian ambassador was summoned, but declined to comment further, saying that "the matter is being investigated". The Russian Defence Ministry spoke more clearly: the acting chief of the ministry's press and information office, Aleksandr Drobyshevskiy, told journalists that "there is no confirmation that Russia handed over arms to Armenia". "We regard such reports as an information provocation," Drobyshevskiy said, adding that "Col Aleksandr Petrunin had no right to make such comments to anyone."

Armenia also denied the Azerbaijani media reports. The press secretary of the Armenian Defence Ministry, Seyran Shah-suvaryan, said that "he does not understand where such reports come from", and called them "disinformation".

One way or another, the Russian Defence Ministry took almost nine days to "clarify the situation" - the same time that Ukraine waited for Health Minister Romanenko to make a statement after the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power station, and he then said that everything was fine, the situation was under control and there was nothing to be afraid of. As for the Russian Foreign Ministry, its reaction resembled the behaviour of a top official who is caught red-handed in the acting of taking a bribe and tries to "attack the detective" who has clearly forgotten who he is dealing with.

"Quoting the 15 January 2009 note of the Foreign Ministry of the Azerbaijan Republic, the Russian Foreign Ministry informed the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, in response to the concern expressed by the Azerbaijani side, that the Defence Ministry of the Russian Federation did not hand over or sell any arms or military hardware to the Armenian side in the amount that would be the subject of a document published on 8 January 2008," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in its note handed to the minister-counsellor of the Azerbaijani embassy in Moscow, Baxis Zeynalov, and published on the website of the Russian Foreign Ministry. Then the Russian Foreign Ministry tried to present its own accusations, saying that this information was published on an Azerbaijani website and had caused a great outcry: "This publication is disinformation, has a clearly anti-Russian nature and does not promote the positive development of friendly Russian-Azerbaijani relations. The Russian side believes that the issue raised in the aforesaid note of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry is concluded, and expresses confidence that if there are any concerns the sides will not draw hasty conclusions or take measures, but will jointly dispel possible doubts, in the spirit of close relations of strategic partnership which link the Russian Federation and the Azerbaijan Republic," the document said. Moreover, Moscow also expressed the hope that "the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry will find an opportunity to inform the public and the media of the Azerbaijan Republic about the essence of the position of the Russian side".

"The essence of the position of the Russian side", however, did not sound very convincing, especially against the background that, as a member of the CSTO, Armenia has a decided preference for buying Russian weapons. Moreover, Moscow has already been caught giving a "gift" to Armenia in the form of weapons worth one billion dollars - also indignantly denied.

So it is hardly surprising that Baku did not believe the Russian Foreign Ministry's statement. "The investigation into this case allows us to suppose that the information about the handover of Russian weapons to Armenia is true," the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said. At the same time, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said that this incident "furthers the continuation of the occupation of Azerbaijani territory by the Armenian side". "In this regard, the Foreign Ministry expresses special concern in the context of friendly and close strategic relations between Azerbaijan and Russia, as well as over Moscow's role in the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. Baku believes that special responsibility for the further development of the situation rests directly with Russia," the ministry said in its statement.

Commenting on the incident, the head of the public-political department of the Azerbaijani presidential administration, Ali Hasanov, told journalists that "if this is confirmed, it will deal a serious blow to Russia's image, both regionally and worldwide." "What's more, its image as a neutral party with a role in the peacekeeping process will also be damaged. For the time being, facts testify that a free handover of arms to Armenia did take place, and the arguments of the Russian side do not convince us of the opposite. This being so, we will view Russia as a neighbour that should not be trusted and will regard Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev's attitude towards his joint statement with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Baku as not being serious," said the official of the presidential administration.

It is hardly necessary here to remind anyone of the axiom that if a rifle hangs from the wall in the first act of a play, it will definitely be fired in the last act. In this case, not only does the number of rifles on the wall increase, but it is the aggressor country that is being supplied with weapons, and its obstinacy in the talks has long been the main obstacle to conflict settlement. The most annoying thing is that this is not being done by chance - Moscow has compelling reasons for such dangerous "gifts". The latest presidential elections in Armenia, and especially the tragic events of 1-2 March, leave no doubt that sentiments, if not anti-Russian, then at least of disappointment in the results of such loyal friendship to Moscow, are manifesting themselves in that country. The most serious "feed" for such sentiment is the deplorable economic situation in Armenia, which Moscow cannot or does not want to ease. In this situation, Moscow needs to strengthen its position there and, in essence, it does not have any levers other than 'gift' weapons. Moreover, if the European Union has an interest in peace and stability along "alternative" pipelines, then hotheads in Moscow, for the same considerations, may try to disrupt their operation by "unfreezing" the conflict, as was the case in Georgia during the five-day war. In this event, it is quite logical to supply weapons to the aggressor country.

However, it is possible that the main reason is quite different. By supplying weapons to Armenia, Moscow hopes to undermine the mission of the OSCE Minsk Group, even though Russia is one of its co-chairmen. Indeed, the Aliyev-Sarkisyan-Medvedev meeting in Moscow was a clear bid for Medvedev's own "peacekeeping mission", and it is quite possible that the Moscow declaration's reference to the Madrid principles failed to cool the ardour of Russian diplomats. Moreover, statements have been made recently about the creation of a "peacekeeping mechanism" within the framework of the CSTO. At the same time, relations between Russia and the OSCE are rapidly deteriorating. A number of indirect indications allow us to suppose that by supplying weapons to Armenia, Moscow hoped to "undermine" the OSCE's peacekeeping mission in order to take total control of the conflict and to minimize the diplomatic presence of the USA and France in any settlement.

… In this way Russia is yet again forcibly rebuffing countries that try to establish neighbourly, partnership relations with it. Clearly, Moscow simply cannot learn the lessons of the past. Russia forgets that, when in the mid-1990s Moscow suspended rail links with Azerbaijan for two years, Europe responded with the TRACECA transport corridor. When Russia began to suspend gas supplies to its neighbours and Europe, the Old World came up with Nabucco, and so on. The puzzlement and affront of some aggressive circles in Russia at the entirely natural reaction of their neighbours, whom they themselves have literally forced to look for other options, are incomprehensible. 

But the reasons for such short-sighted policy were obvious in the 1990s: under Yeltsin practically two Russias existed, when the energy minister signed the Contract of the Century in Baku and the foreign minister stated the same day that the contract was not recognized. 

After Vladimir Putin came to power, the situation changed and for some time we dealt with a united country. But our neighbour's situation is now already beginning to resemble the two-headed eagle on its emblem, whose heads are facing in opposite directions. 

And as a result we have, on the one hand, President Dmitriy Medvedev initiating the signing of the Moscow Declaration by the Azerbaijani, Russian and Armenian presidents and, on the other, the country's military-industrial complex blindly continuing to arm one side in the conflict. And of course the country's Foreign Ministry is covering up for the arms industry's tricks. 

So Azerbaijan did have grounds for concern when Russia withdrew its bases from Georgia to A rmenia, although at the time President Vladimir Putin himself gave assurances that the weapons were not being transferred to Armenia but to the Russian Federation's military base.