Alexei Vlasov. Exclusively to VK
Foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan will meet to discuss settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in September within opening of the UN General Assembly session in New York. The foreign minister of Azerbaijan, Elmar Mamedyarov, stated that ahead of the meeting co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group should have talks with foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia. The Minsk Group is acting for 20 years, but no serious results have been achieved. At the same time, a bad peace is better than a good war, and peace can be maintained only by consolidated efforts. Meanwhile, as France recognized “Armenian genocide,” Baku considers if Francois Hollande continues Nicolas Sarkozy’s line, the question on possible change of the Minsk Group format will be posed.
A peace has to be found in the current composition of participants. Another question is whether political elites of Armenia and Azerbaijan are ready to step forward to each other in searching for a compromise. It is very doubtful. Variants of development of social dialogue, civil society and inter-community contacts at the level of Azeri and Armenian communities of Nagorno-Karabakh follow from it. Today neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan is ready to state on possibility of a compromise, alas, because society wouldn’t support the political forces that would say “we are ready to change our initial positions.” This situation makes Ilham Aliyev and Serge Sargsyan maintan strict positions, and it corners mediators. Any format of settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem is impossible without Baku and Yerevan’s will.
Nevertheless, a tense situation has been formed at the line of separation Armenian and Azerbaijani troops in recent months. Therefore, a tactic task of the mediators is not proposal of a real plan of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict’s settlement, but prevention of escalation of tension around Nagorno-Karabakh and peaceful process of contacts between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Meanwhile, Armenia and Azerbaijan will experience presidential elections. It seems 2013 will be a hard year: provocations and attempts of influencing elections in Armenia and Azerbaijan by foreign forces will take place. Russia, in contrary, is interested in settlement of the conflict through preservation of stability both in Armenia and Azerbaijan, but hardly everybody shares this position. Apparently Ilham Aliyev will win in Azerbaijan. But he will have a new mandate of trust and opportunity to settle problems suggesting new variants of peace. Maybe in 2013 the issue will find progress due to mediation of Russia and other participants of the Minsk Group.
At the moment the main objective of mediators is improvement of monitoring reports on ceasing armed clashes on the line of separation of Armenian and Azerbaijani military forces. The OSCE officials emphasized it during their recent visit to the South Caucasus.
Secondly, communication between civil societies of Armenia and Azerbaijan should be intensified.
Thirdly, the problem of the regions which have never been Nagorno-Karabakh and belong to Azerbaijan should be settled. Seven regions of Azerbaijan occupied by Armenia are controlled by the Armenian army. Azerbaijan in its turn should solve the problem of non-use of force in settlement of the conflict.
These issues are a stumbling stone in mediation efforts around the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. If they are managed to be solved, the Nagorno-Karabakh problem will have a chance to be settled according to the Madrid principles, step by step.
