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By Evgeniy Krishtalev, exclusively to VK
Today Sochi will host the first meeting of Azerbaijani and Armenian Presidents Ilham Aliev and Serge Sarksyan mediated by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for the last 6 months. It is possible that it is the final attempt of Medvedev who is leaving the presidential chair to reach some kind of a compromise on the Nagorno-Karabakh matter or at least move the negotiations from the dead point. Previous meeting in Kazan was not a breakthrough, but it helped reproach the parties’ positions. However, Armenia and Azerbaijan are still far from agreeing on the basic principles of the conflict settlement formulated by the OSCE Minsk Group.
According to Russian FM Sergei Lavrov, by organizing this trilateral meeting in Sochi Russia demonstrated its intention to continue its mediatory efforts in the Nagorno-Karabakh matter. Minsk Group co-chairs’ representatives will also be present. Mr Lavrov abstained from making any prognosis as to what impact would this meeting possibly have.
The head of the Political Situation monitoring Center Sergey Mikheev told VK of his expectations from this meeting of three presidents. According to him, it will not have any considerable impact. “First of all, President Medvedev is finishing his term, and secondly, no significant developments have happened since the last meeting in Kazan. I think that the Kazan meeting even deteriorated the situation as it had a trail of negative comments, etc. So there are no serious preconditions for a sudden success”, Mr Mikheev said. As for the possibility of a new military outbreak in the region, he said that it is unlikely to happen, at least in the nearest future, as none of the conflict parties would benefit from it. “In 2013 Azerbaijan is to hold presidential polls, so if something goes wrong, it would affect the reputation of the acting president Ilham Alliev and his team. In this situation Azerbaijani authorities won’t get involved into a military face-off with Armenia unless there’s a 100% guarantee of success”.
According to the Head of the Caucasian Studies under the RUSH, Ismail Agakishiev, this new initiative coming from Kremlin proves that Moscow is truly interested in the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. At the same time, Moscow doesn’t want to cede the role of the chief mediator to anyone. “Recently President Medvedev told Azerbaijani journalists that Nagorno-Karabakh has a chance to be resolved peacefully. And as Mr Medvedev is one of the three people who are informed the best on this matter, I think his words are worth trusting”, the expert said. He also suggested that today’s meeting is not just another one in a long line: it seems that President Medvedev tries to finish up all loose ends before the elections. However, Mr Agakishiev admitted that it is very unlikely that the talks would move from the dead point today. The expert disagreed with the opinion that this trilateral meeting is nothing but a ‘goodbye’ from Medvedev to his colleagues.
“Medvedev could have picked a more comfortable way to say goodbye to his colleagues: he could have visited them or invited them to Sochi separately. I think this new meeting is a full scale round of Nagorno-Karabakh negotiations. Russia is interested in resolving the conflict in a compromise. However, in this situation it is very hard to reach a compromise acceptable for both conflict parties. It is possible, but it requires a great deal of good will from all participants”, Agakishiev said.
Leonid Gusev, expert from the Institute of international relations studies under the MGIMO-University, agreed that Medvedev demonstrates his will to find answers to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. And it is a good sign that the three presidents decided to meet again in person. It is much better than threats and accusations. It is hard to tell whether this meeting will have any success or not, but the very fact the Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders want to meet again in Russia is a good sign”, the expert said.
The head of the foreign relations department under Azerbaijani [residential administration, Norvuz Mamedov, said that the upcoming meeting will reveal the future position of his country. Since 2008, there were 10 of such trilateral meeting. According to the Kremlin press0service address, Moscow is very concerned with the growing number of seize-fire regime violations and military rhetoric of both countries. Moscow hopes to finish elaborating the mechanism of reaction to such incidents shortly. Russia also hopes that the dialog between science and social figures of the two countries would help resolve the conflict: there have already been precedents of such ‘popular diplomacy’ in 2007 and 2009.
