Upcoming visits of the Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev to Azerbaijan and Armenia will strengthen the work of mediators on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement, the director of the EurAsEC Institute, a member of the Zinoviev Club of ‘Rossiya Segodnya’ news agency, Vladimir Lepekhin, told Vestnik Kavkaza, commenting on a possible agenda of the Kazakh leader's visit to the South Caucasus.
According to him, the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement is the most obvious topic for Nazarbayev's talks in both Baku and Yerevan. "I think that today there is some discomfort over the fact that Russia is the only active mediator and it bears too much responsibility in looking for ways to resolve the Karabakh problem. The fact is that the formula of collective Eurasian security, which is developing in two directions - the northern part of the Middle East and the EEU - is being approved in the Caucasus. In terms of such collective security it would be right Putin is not the only one who takes part in the negotiations between the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia, but other leaders of the Eurasian space are engaged too, that is, of course, Nazarbayev," the expert explained.
"In the current situation, when several political forces voiced discontent with Russia's sale of weapons to Azerbaijan, an intensification of the Kazakh President Nazarbayev's role as a mediator between Azerbaijan and Armenia is justified and logical. I think it would be reasonable if the Kazakh President partially takes over the function of holding negotiations between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as over a whole range of other issues of cooperation between the two countries," Vladimir Lepekhin stressed.
Of course, Kazakhstan is interested in stability in the Caucasus, he drew attention. "It is also explained by the formula of collective security, which directly concerns Kazakhstan, in relation to which attempts to destabilize the political situation are being made. There is the EEU space and Kazakhstan is interested if Azerbaijan would became its part as a partner in the Caspian region. We can say that Azerbaijan is a border country for Kazakhstan, therefore, economic and political interests of the republic are direct. Those configuration which is now at the level of interaction of the EEU member countries and the countries of the northern part of the Middle East is the basis for the formation of a unified Eurasian trade zone, where a number of states, in fact, are building fundamentally new relations from scratch," the expert said.
"Therefore, on the one hand, they need to ensure the geopolitical vector of displacement of all kinds of western intermediaries from the area, and on the other hand, to form various economic ties between states in the region - not only logistical but also energy ones, because all the major states are involved in either export or the transit of hydrocarbons. Kazakhstan is also very interested in developing relations with Azerbaijan on good neighborliness and economic partnership lines, and that there will be peace in Armenia and in Caucasus in general," Vladimir Lepekhin concluded.
