Karabakh knot

After the trilateral meeting of Russian, Azerbaijani and Armenian Presidents in Kazan failed to become a ‘major breakthrough’, the negotiations came to a standstill. Mutual accusations of uncooperative and even destructive positions became traditional. President Sarksyan’s claim that "Armenia has already resolved the Karabakh
problem", as well as his offensive words about the Azerbaijani President, hampered the active peace process initiated by Dmitry Medvedev. The latter seems to have also reduced his involvement in the matter for the time being, probably to avoid further embarrassment in case of a new failure.
Recent statements by high-ranking Armenian and Azerbaijani officials clearly demonstrate that the OSCE Minsk Group’s claims of "rapprochement on a number of issues between the two sides" are far from being true. What kind of a "rapprochement" could there be if the Armenians still say that they find it impossible to agree on
Nagorno-Karabakh’s reintegration into Azerbaijan, while the Azerbaijani side refuses to discuss any scenario that would result in Nagorno-Karabakh’s separation from the country’s territories?
The issue of a referendum in Nagorno-Karabakh is still the main stumbling block. Azerbaijan is concerned that this conjectural referendum might turn into a legal mechanism for separating Karabakh’s territory from Azerbaijan. That is why Baku doesn’t want the referendum to take place, not when the votes of Karabakh’s Armenian
community are most likely to outweigh those of the Azerbaijani one. Presidential attaché Norvuz Mamedov explained that such a referendum, conducted solely in Nagorno-Karabakh, without taking the opinion of the rest of Azerbaijani people into account, is unacceptable to Baku.

It’s easy to understand Baku's reasoning: it considers Nagorno-Karabakh to be an integral part of its territories, and being a unitary state it can’t accept holding a public referendum in only one of its regions, as it would contradict the state’s sovereign status. It is interesting to cite the words of Matthew Bryza, US diplomat, ex-OSCE Minsk Group co-chair and current US Ambassador to Azerbaijan, who was one of the authors of so-called ‘Madrid Principles’ of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement. He said that this document is based on the Helsinki principle of "non-violent resolution of problems touching upon states’ territorial integrity and the right of self-determination for ethnic minorities." Such an experienced diplomat couldn’t be unaware of the fact that by using, albeit in a quotation, the term "ethnic minority" he was stressing that Karabakh Armenians are an ethnic minority within the structure of Azerbaijani state. That coincides with the official position of Moscow, Washington and Paris. Matthew Bryza and Norvus Mamadov were talking about the same thing: Karabakh Armenians can pretend to be considered as an ethnic minority with all rights resulting from this definition, but nothing more than that.
The Baku authorities are ready to grant an ‘intermediate’ status to Nagorno-Karabakh, as stipulated by the Madrid principles, which would put this territory into a unique position among other Azeri regions, and that is a huge compromise on the part of Baku. This decision could have an undesirable impact on other ethnic minorities living in Azerbaijan, but it is still willing to accept this paragraph of the principles and grant Nagorno-Karabakh unprecedented autonomy in order to move forward in the peace process. Of course, Baku was expecting some concessions from Yerevan in return, for example, complying with the Madrid demand to free territories bordering on Karabakh from military occupation, which is not legal even according to the Armenian President. Answering a question as to where the borders of Armenia should be, Sarksyan answered: "The country’s borders lie as far as you can extend them. What we are able to hold is ours. As for Agdam – I’ll repeat it if you like – it’s not a part of Armenian territory."

The liberation of the Azerbaijani territories neighbouring Karabakh would be a major breakthrough in the process, as well as have a positive impact on the general situation in the South Caucasus and would definitely contribute to the opening of the Armenian-Turkish border. So why aren’t the Armenian authorities ready to take this
step? As expert Stephan Meister explained in his interview to VK, the whole ideological system of post-Soviet Armenia is based upon the myth of an "Armenian Karabakh", and the Armenian political elite uses this myth to mask their otherwise unsuccessful political course. This ‘national idea’ of Nagorno-Karabakh as an Armenian territory is one of the main factors hampering the negotiating process: relinquishing any territory in this region, even if it is not an actual part of Karabakh, would be considered a betrayal of national interests by the Armenian population.
The issue of Nagorno-Karabakh is so sensitive for both the Armenian and Azerbaijani people that it is able to trigger mass movements of terrifying scale. Neither of the conflicting parties is able to find a peaceful end to this stalemate. However, if Baku decides to take military action it would first seek guarantees of Russia’s non-involvement. Ilham Aliyev is a pragmatist and wouldn’t take the risk unless he were sure of the operation’s success.

For its part, Russia won’t be able to stay away from a military conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia and would support the latter under a pretence of ‘peace enforcement’. Washington won’t be able to stop Moscow from doing so, as the US has already created a number of precedents, Libyan being the latest, and as the course of the ‘reboot’ of US-Russian relations demands Washington to decrease its involvement in South Caucasian affairs.
Meanwhile, Armenian media reported about an alleged new meeting between Sarksyan and Aliyev on September 13, this time in Washington. If the rumour is true, then it is obvious that Washington decided to take the matter into its own hands after the failure of Moscow. The Azerbaijani foreign ministry  didn’t comment on this piece of
information but stated that the country is ready to continue negotiations based on the Madrid Principles. Whether American diplomacy have more success than Russian diplomacy remains to be seen.
Orkhan Sattarov, head of VK’s European Bureau