Peace on the Moscow Horizon?: Russian president calls Caucasus leadership to Kremlin for negotiations
This weekend Medvedev is hosting Sargsyan and Aliyev in an attempt to solve the last frozen conflict.
By John Hughes and Suren Musayelyan
ArmeniaNow reporters
Published: 31 October, 2008
In a move viewed as a major development in regional cooperation and stability as well as a potential forward step for peace between Karabakh and Azerbaijan, President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia has called leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to Moscow for a weekend summit.
During the Russian chief’s visit to Yerevan on October 20, it became known that Medvedev had suggested a sit-down with his neighboring leaders. It was not known until Wednesday, however, that the meeting would be arranged so soon.
The Moscow Summit is being viewed in light of a flurry of movement in the region ever since Russia and Georgia went to war over South Ossetia in early August. The conflict there illustrated the vulnerability of the entire region (as well as Russia’s remaining dominance, 17 years since either Armenia, Georgia or Azerbaijan was officially under the Kremlin’s dictates).
Since, President Serzh Sargsyan of Armenia has met with President Abdullah Gul of Turkey. Gul has met with President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan. And, following Medvedev’s Yerevan visit, Sargsyan was in Karabakh, where he said peace is possible: “ . . . if Azerbaijan recognizes the right of Nagorno-Karabakh’s people for self-determination, if Nagorno-Karabakh has a land border with Armenia and if international organizations and the leading powers of the world guarantee the security of the Nagorno-Karabakh people.”
While Karabakh won’t have an elected official around the table in Moscow, its interests will be upheld by Sargsyan, the troubled little breakaway republic’s native son.
Leaders of the three nations’ foreign ministries were appointed to meet today (October 31).
“We can find a solution to the conflict if Azerbaijan displays will and does not obstruct the negotiating process with various kinds of statements in all possible structures,” said Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan at a press conference in Yerevan Thursday shortly before leaving for Moscow.
The foreign ministers’ meeting in Moscow will be followed by a meeting with the cochairmen of the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and then by the meeting of the presidents on Sunday.
Nalbandyan also suggested that if the leaderships in Armenia and Azerbaijan come to any agreement on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement, this will become public knowledge and a matter for broad discussion not only in Armenia but also in Nagorno-Karabakh proper.
Medvedev’s initiative might also signal a shift in leadership on the Karabakh settlement. For more than a decade the United States and Europe have wrangled with the rivaling republics to find a means of settlement that avoids further conflict. Russia’s role has been a matter of some speculation ever since the 2001 “Key West Summit” was aborted due to Russia’s concerns.
Yerevan-based political and security analyst Richard Giragosian views the summit as “a significant development, with implications far broader than simply the latest stage of the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process. The Moscow summit, as Russia’s first initiative in the wake of the August conflict in Georgia, reflects not only a demonstration of Moscow’s newly enhanced position in the region, but is also tied to a broader Russian strategy of matching Turkey’s recent bid to regain its diminished position as a regional power.
“From this context, Russia is also studiously seeking to reassure the West that, despite the tension over Georgia because of Russia’s recognition of Georgia’s separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Moscow can be a ‘helpful’ partner in Nagorno-Karabakh, the region’s sole remaining ‘frozen conflict’.”
The analyst warns, too, that Medvedev’s call is not purely altruism at work.
“There is more to Russia’s agenda than putting a new more positive face on its diplomacy,” Giragosian says, adding that a recent suggestion of placing Russian peacekeepers in the disputed territories is Moscow’s “move that would not only consolidate Russian leverage but also threatens to further entrench Russia as the dominant actor in the South Caucasus.”
South Caucasus analyst Victor Yakubyan says that “the upcoming negotiations in Moscow will pass against the background of activation of forces in Armenia.”
The analyst predicts that if Sargsyan agreed to an escalation of negotiations in Moscow and approved the plan and terms of withdrawal of Armenian troops from the security zone surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh, the internal political field in Armenia will totally transform to engender a new opposition front.
Some also predict that the speeded up negotiations on Nagorno-Karabakh might cause representatives of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) to withdraw from the governing coalition and might also return second president Robert Kocharyan to the political arena and unite Dashnaktsutyun and Kocharyan.
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