TIME TO COLLECT STONES

Main regional and extra-regional actors perceive the new geopolitical and geoeconomic reality as they should do under the conditions that emerged after the 44-day war in Garabagh. Yet only Armenia pretends that the war has not changed anything in the region. Therefore, Armenia believes that it makes sense to return to the old agenda but interpret it a new style. Azerbaijan, on the contrary, insists that there is no return to the past and it’s simply impossible. In this context, the recent visit of President Ilham Aliyev to Moscow is indicative.

The Kremlin thanks for compromise

President Aliyev made his trip to Moscow, choosing the most convenient time for the visit. After all, it took place after a series of mutual visits by Armenian and Russian politicians, as well as telephone conversations between the leaders of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia, which made it possible to have a more complete picture of the ongoing processes and be guided by the outcome of previous contacts.

A little retrospective analysis reveals a number of interesting details. For example, three days after the elections in Armenia, President Aliyev made a telephone call to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The leaders discussed the implementation of the November 10 trilateral statement. Presumably, Baku insisted that Armenia, after N. Pashinyan's victory in the elections, intensifies the implementation of the provisions of the statement, especially the part concerning the complete withdrawal of the Armenian military from the Azerbaijani territory, as well as other issues.

By the way, these issues were already discussed on July 13 in Baku during the visit of Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk, who represents Moscow in the Azerbaijan-Armenia-Russia trilateral commission. The main topic of the conversation was the restoration of the trilateral commission and the acceleration of the process of unblocking communication lines in the region. The parties also confirmed their intention to resume the activities of the commission as soon as possible and to resolve all the remaining issues in a consistent manner.

It is very important that Mr. Putin thanked President Aliyev for his decisions to end the Garabagh conflict and made it clear that Moscow highly appreciated the patience and cold-mindedness of Baku despite inconsistent actions of Armenia. Meeting of the presidents lasted more than two hours. This may indicate that they had a detailed discussion of all the important regional and bilateral issues.

Tears will not help in Moscow

The visit of the acting Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to Moscow on July 7 was strikingly different from the one of President Aliyev. It was a working visit only a couple of weeks after the victory of the ruling Civil Contract party in the parliamentary elections. Therefore, no documents were signed during the visit. In addition, this was also Nikol Pashinyan's first foreign visit after Azerbaijan’s victory in the war. This demonstrates that Moscow remains the key partner of Yerevan, and holds a constant dialogue with the Armenian political leadership on internal political, economic, and foreign policy issues.

At this stage, it is important for Yerevan to secure the Kremlin’s support to solve the border issues and to put pressure on Baku to slow down the processes of delimitation and demarcation of the border line. Compared to the active construction of border infrastructure by Azerbaijan, Armenia does not have the means for an adequate response. Therefore, Yerevan needs to increase both funding and the number of military personnel. At the same time, Armenia wants to solve the problem using the Russian military. The latter, however, carried out monitoring at the border, and did not show any intention to get involved in the ongoing process. This position was also confirmed by the spokesman of the Russian president Dmitry Peskov. He said that Moscow had no plans to deploy peacekeepers or border guards on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. Moreover, Moscow does not want to enter into confrontation with Baku, which is fraught with serious yet unnecessary geopolitical consequences.

Yerevan is also categorically against any plans to grant Baku and Islamabad a status of CSTO partners, despite Moscow’s intention to develop an active military-political and military-technical dialogue with Azerbaijan and Pakistan, including within the framework of the CSTO. Therefore, Moscow is by no means interested in complicating the dialogue with Baku for the sake of the Armenian interests.

Meanwhile, Russia can smooth the possible contradictions between Moscow and Yerevan over the situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border by providing more security guarantees to Armenia in exchange for changing Yerevan's position on the veto on granting Baku and Islamabad the status of CSTO partners. Armenia insists on strengthening the positions of the Russian military personnel in the Syunik district and putting pressure on Baku mostly by Moscow.

However, the Kremlin turned a blind eye to Pashinyan's pleas, preferring to take advantage of the conversation for its own interests, that is strengthening the post-conflict state of affairs. Moscow is well aware that any new confrontation in the region can activate external players, which means obvious geopolitical risks.

In addition, Moscow also insists on the resumption of the trilateral commission including the deputy prime ministers of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia. Yerevan, however, links the issue of resuming its participation in the commission with the establishment of a new government, as well as with the withdrawal of the Azerbaijani military allegedly located on the Armenian territory. Russia has been fed up with these annoying requests from Yerevan for a long time, but Moscow clearly does not want to put pressure on Armenia in order to avoid the growth of anti-Russian sentiments. This, apparently, delays the solution of many issues in the post-war situation.

Everything is clear

Meanwhile, after his visit to Moscow, President Ilham Aliyev gave a detailed interview to the Azerbaijani television. He said that there were no topics that would lead to disputes between the parties. This demonstrates that Azerbaijan and Russia are committed to the same positions on all the strategic issues of the post-conflict agenda.

Mr. Aliyev underlined that in the post-war period Azerbaijan acted quickly and made its agenda accepted. The ongoing processes, including in the territories controlled by the Russian peacekeepers, and around them, as well as the political issues and the demarcation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, are based on this agenda. Thus, Baku believes that under the current conditions, it has the highest possible level of control within its own territory, even considering the operation of the peacekeeping mission in Azerbaijan.

President said that Azerbaijan also monitors foreign vehicles that enter Garabagh through the Lachin corridor. “We said that they should stop this, as it is our territory. If they think that we do not see this, he is delusional. Some of these vehicles have Armenian plate numbers. But we are there, we are in the corridor, we can see everything, both in Khankendi, and in the corridor. Again, they must stop this. The number of cars leaving the territory versus the ones getting in decreases every day. How logical is it to grant a status for just 25,000 people living there?" President also noted clear that Baku had the maximum opportunity to observe the situation in this territory, to identify and record all the facts related to the violation of Azerbaijan's sovereign rights within its borders.

Ilham Aliyev said that the positions of Baku and Moscow on Garabagh are identical; Azerbaijan and Russia consider the Garabagh conflict over. Thus, he made it clear that neither Baku nor Moscow would accept a return to the old agenda. Any aggravation of confrontation in the region entails risks that the Azerbaijani and Russian sides consider as undesirable. They both try to maximise the benefits of the post-conflict reality in the region. At the same time, President of Azerbaijan illustrated his words with a specific example: “We discussed the post-war situation in the region, including the Zangezur corridor and the post-conflict period. We have no disagreements on approaches."

Referring to bilateral relations with Russia, Mr. Aliyev called Azerbaijan and Russia “strategic partners”. “We have very strong friendly ties and personally I have very close relations with Mr Putin; we are politicians who trust each other,” Mr. Aliyev said. He made it clear that this factor in bilateral relations largely contributes to establishing a vector of bilateral policy, and the potential for resolving all controversial issues within this format is very high.

Mr. Aliyev also said that Azerbaijan and Armenia should sign a peace treaty, mutually recognise each other's territorial integrity and resolve the issue of delimitation of the common borders. “I have said many times: we are ready to start the negotiations and we will. Is the war over? Yes, it is. Does Armenia want peace? It seems so. Then why don’t they want to sign a peace treaty? They just need to recognise our territorial integrity, sign a peace treaty, and solve the issue of delimitation of the borders,” Mr. Aliyev said addressing to Yerevan. For Azerbaijan, this is the key to a new geopolitical reality and a guarantee against the revanchist attempts by the political circles in Armenia.

Now the best way to resolve the issues is to resume the work of the trilateral commission to unblock and resolve the border issues. Moscow expects to focus the discussions on the coordination of economic issues. It can be assumed that at this stage the parties expect constructive steps from Armenia. Unfortunately, Armenia delays the process, which makes the use of pressure on Yerevan inevitable.

Whether Armenia will hear the messages of Baku and Moscow is no longer so important. Today, the regional policy agenda is determined by processes launched by Azerbaijan. Sooner or later, Yerevan will have to acknowledge the reality.