Victoria Panfilova, Nezavisimaya Gazeta columnist, exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza
Today a meeting of the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Edward Nalbandyan and Elmar Mamedyarov, is set to take place in Paris. the meeting will be mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group, which is regulating the process of settling the Karabakh conflict.
The latest meeting of the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Ilkham Aliyev and Serge Sargsyan, took place on November 19, 2014. It received positive comments from its protagonists, the leaders of the conflicting states. It can make us assume that the negotiation process that had been stalled in the previous years, can get moving in the nearest future. Moreover, such optimism was supported by disappearing of the "military aspect" of Baku and Yerevan's rhetorics: in all kinds of speeches concerning the Karabakh conflict there were no threats and "last warnings". The same goes for the border: shoots were much less frequent than before the presidential meeting.
Right after the negotiations in Vienna, the co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group declared the start of preparation of a new meeting of the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia. In January 2014, they visited both Baku and Yerevan, and even Nagorny Karabakh as well. There were more optimistic statements. However, today the situation deteriorated noticeably. A few days ago, the conflict sides accused each other of violating the ceasefire regime. Both sides had losses.
Young men from both sides got killed, and it doesn't matter what is true and what is not in the mutual accusations. It is lamentable that the new stage of escalation of the tension happened right before the meeting of the two foreign ministers. Now we can suppose that instead of working hard on progress in the negotiation process, the participants of the Paris meeting can lose much time and efforts to discuss the incident.
Ilgar Velizade, Head of South Caucasus Political Studies Club, commented to our correspondent that, putting aside the tragedy, one can assume that there are concrete propositions on the negotiations table, and the sides can reach certain agreements on them. "The meeting of the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan will take place taking into consideration the information about the possible meeting of the two presidents in February, published by James Warlic, the American co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group, in his Twitter. This can make us suppose that there are indeed concrete propositions. What they are about and how they can impact the dynamics of the negotiation process, time will tell. However basing on the logics of the leaking information, it must be about some interim scenario of the conflict settlement, foreseeing the possibility of liberating a number of Azerbaijani regions in exchange for opening the communications from the side of Azerbaijan and Turkey and the revival of the Armenian-Turkish dialogue", said Mr Velizade.
His Armenian colleague, Boris Navasardyan, the President of Yevervan Press Club, is not so optimistic. He admits that "negotiations are better than no negotiations". "At the same time, this period is extremely unfavorable for any progress, - he told to our correspondent. - On the one hand, the recent incident on the border, and the death of the Armenian soldier that aroused a loud reaction in the community, the recent declaration of the Azeri authorities that today's territory of Armenia is the historical land of Azerbaijan, are not favorable for constructive negotiations. On the other hand, the constraint of the Armenian leaders in foreign policy due to their overwhelmingly rapid movement towards the Customs Union shows that they are not ready to make decisions on important issues". Mr Navasardyan doesn't believes the mediators have any new consolidated propositions either.
We can draw the conclusion that the meeting of Elmar Mamedyarov and Edward Nalbandyan will be useful anyway. It may reduce the tension in the conflict zone. Supposedly it could be considered as preparation of the meeting of Presidents Aliyev and Sargsyan. But we shouldn't overestimate its importance. Especially when we don't know for sure what is in the negotiations table (if there is anything).
