A discussion of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with the participation of the Foreign Ministers of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia ended in Moscow on April 28th. The participants of the negotiations characterized the outcome of the meeting rather scrupulously - they will be reported to the presidents, and the contacts will be continued. It was also noted, that the discussions were held on the prospects for the advancement of the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement, and the need to implement the agreements, reached at the summits in Vienna and St. Petersburg, was stressed.
We should concentrate on the reference to the agreements reached in Vienna and St. Petersburg. It is no secret, that for a long time Armenia and Azerbaijan (especially after the last year’s April clashes) are engaged in a principled diplomatic struggle in the following direction: Armenia insists on the introduction of the mechanisms for investigating of the incidents in the conflict zone. Azerbaijan, in its turn, wants to hold substantive talks and considers the introduction of the mechanisms for investigating the front-line incidents separately from the real progress in the settlement as an attempt to cement the status quo, that is not acceptable for Azerbaijan. Lets recall, what was specifically announced, following the summits in Vienna and St. Petersburg.
In a joint statement by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, the US Secretary of State and French State Secretary for European Affairs, following the results of the Vienna Summit of May 16, 2016, it was stated that the parties agreed to work on the OSCE mechanism to conduct the investigations of the incidents in the shortest possible time. "The Presidents also agreed to the expansion of the Office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office. They agreed to continue the exchange of information on the missing persons under the auspices of the ICRC, taking into account the commitments, made by the presidents during the Paris Summit in October 2014," the statement reads.
In the final statement on the results of the trilateral meeting between Vladimir Putin, Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan in St. Petersburg on June 20, 2016 on the introduction of the mechanisms to complete the work on the mechanisms for investigating of the incidents, it was not explicitly mentioned, but a reference was made to the outcome of the Vienna summit. "The Presidents of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Armenia confirmed the agreements reached at the previous Armenian-Azerbaijani summit in Vienna on May 16 of this year, aimed at stabilizing the situation in the conflict zone and creating of the atmosphere for the advancement of the peace process. To this end, they agreed, in particular, to increase the number of the international observers in the conflict zone.’’ That is, unlike the issue of increasing the number of observers, the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan did not agree on the introduction of the mechanisms for investigating of the incidents at the summit in St. Petersburg, otherwise there would not be any sense in such a clarification. An increase in the number of OSCE observers is acceptable for the both sides.
A question arises: what, then, was decided about the introduction of the mechanisms for investigating the front-line incidents? It seems that this topic was also suspended in the air, and not least due to the far from accidental formulation of ‘the shortest possible time’ in a joint statement, following the results of the Vienna summit. "The shortest possible time" is a loose concept, after all, the shortest ‘possible’ period can be 5, 10 or even 100 years. And, undoubtedly, the Azerbaijani diplomacy ties the ‘possibility’ of the deadline for completion of the work on the mechanisms for investigation to the progress of the substantive negotiations - in other words, to the specific agreements on the timing of the withdrawal of the Armenian troops from the occupied Azerbaijani regions. In such conditions, Armenia can not seriously count on the fact that the service for its servicemen in Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories, from where the Azerbaijani population was completely expelled, will be an easy task. Only in the past few days, Armenia lost three soldiers in Karabakh, and the tensions on the front remain high.
In 2005, at the time when President Serzh Sargsyan was Armenian Defense Minister, he admitted: "Agdam is not our homeland." This was, undoubtedly, quite a bold move by Sargsyan. The local nationalists were furious with this statement, then they found another ‘ancient Armenian city’ in Agdam, and several years later the Karabakh separatists renamed it in their own way. After that, the city became the ‘homeland of Armenians’ once again, although only 360 people lived there in 2010, since 30,000 Azerbaijanis, who made up almost 100% of the city's population, were expelled from there during the Karabakh war. Finally, the topic of Agdam in the Armenian politics was muted. Meanwhile, the example of Agdam is symptomatic: Armenia lacks either demographic, economic, and political resources for settling and integration of the occupied lands. At the same time, the unpopular ruling team does not risk abandoning to serve the nationalistic sentiments in the society and continues its policy of preserving the status quo in the conflict. The result is a stalemate in the negotiations and attempts to freeze the conflict for an indefinite time, including by trying to squeeze out the mechanisms for investigating the incidents at the front in order to minimize the risks to the internal stability. The ruling team understands, that the Armenian society will not forgive another ‘April clashes’ and new losses of the positions.
