A brief surge of military activity in Nagorno-Karabakh, which occurred almost immediately after the Geneva meeting between the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia, has been followed by a period of relative calm in the conflict region. It seems that Baku and Yerevan are mobilizing diplomatic, political-economic and military resources to strengthen their own negotiating positions.
On October 30, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, along with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, opened a strategic transport project Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK), which has a length of 846 kilometers. This road, which will allow to seriously reduce the time of transportation of goods from China to Europe, has become part of the Chinese One Belt One Road Initiative and is of great importance not only for Baku, Tbilisi and Ankara, but also for the countries of Central Asia. This is confirmed, in particular, by the participation of the heads of government of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in the opening ceremony of the project in Baku. The launch of the BTC also caused wide discussions in Armenia, that feared its increasing transport and economic isolation against the background of the changing logistics map of the region.
Meanwhile, on November 2, Turkish President Erdogan said that he plans to discuss the Nagorno-Karabakh issue with Vladimir Putin in the next two weeks. According to the Turkish leader, if Vladimir Putin "really focuses on this issue then it would be easy to resolve it". The optimism of Turkey's President regarding Russia's ability to resolve the Karabakh issue is quite remarkable. This statement aroused fears in Armenia that the Turkish leadership would try to return the process of resolving the conflict to the Moscow-Baku-Ankara format.
A couple of days before opening the BTC, another important meeting of regional importance was held: the trilateral summit of Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran. This meeting was also important in the context of work on the integration of transport projects, recently announced by President Aliyev. Azerbaijan is also preparing to assume the role of a transit country for the delivery of Russian gas to the northern regions of Iran - according to expert estimates, it is an annual volume of 2-3 billion cubic meters of gas. Along with economic benefits, it will enhance Baku's regional role, and further strengthen the tripartite link between Moscow, Baku and Tehran. Aliev's statement made after the meeting with the Russian president in Tehran, that in the context of the agenda of bilateral relations between him and Putin "there is no a single issue that would need solution" is also interesting. Taking into account Moscow's key intermediary role in the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, this statement can be interpreted not only as an indicator of satisfaction with the level of his cooperation with Russia, but also of reaching agreements on the resolution of the Karabakh conflict.
In Armenia, meanwhile, they actively comment on President Serzh Sargsyan's planned working visit to Moscow in mid-November. The fact that the visit of the Armenian president to Russia will be held on the eve of the Eastern Partnership summit scheduled for November 24 in Riga, where a new agreement with the EU is planned to be signed. This causes associations related to Sargsyan's trip to Moscow ahead of the 2013 Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius. As a result of that trip to President Putin, which was dubbed "a call onto the carpet" by many Armenian experts, Armenia announced its entry into the Customs Union and refused to sign the agreement on association with the EU that was already fully agreed upon by both sides.
Political analyst Ara Papyan told the Armenian newspaper "Lragir" that "the Russians do not accept alternatives for Armenia - they know perfectly well that the alternative will increase Armenia's opportunities to maneuver." Papyan warns that if Sargsyan does not sign an agreement with the EU this time, it will mean that "Armenia will cease to be a sovereign state."
On the other hand, if Armenia signs an agreement with the EU, which is somehow capable of affecting Russia's interests and reducing Armenia's loyalty to Russia, Yerevan will find itself in a strange situation. Armenia's absolute and unconditional loyalty to Russia remains the price of military deterrence of Azerbaijan, and every new preferential Russian loan for the purchase of weapons for the Armenian army should serve as a clear reminder of it. Russia's next $100 million for the needs of the Armenian defense can be called a kind of advance for observing Russian interests at the Eastern Partnership summit in Riga. Otherwise, one cannot exclude the option of a "Russian-Turkish" solution to the Karabakh conflict. It is noteworthy that the Turkish president was going to discuss Karabakh with Putin at almost the same time when Sargsyan's visit to Moscow will take place. The scenario of a soft palace coup in Yerevan is also quite realistic, in which the prime minister's office will be taken not by the incumbent Armenian president, who risks losing the support of the Russian side in case of a mistake in Riga, but another candidate. For example, former Gazprom executive and current Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan. At a specially convened press conference the latter, incidentally, left open the possibility of retaining the post of prime minister after April 9, 2018. A quite impressive coincidence.
