Nagorno Karabakh: No Consensus on Moscow Declaration

Following Sunday’s meeting between the Armenia, Azerbaijani and Russian presidents in Moscow, bloggers have not greeted the signed declaration on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict with much enthusiasm. Elsewhere, opinion is also divided with the mainstream media considering the meeting as some kind of breakthrough while more specialist publications view the event from other angles. RFE/RL’s Liz Fuller, for example, called the declaration a “victory for Armenia” while EurasiaNet considers that Moscow’s real objective was to increase it’s influence over Azerbaijan.

Aiming to build on its military success in Georgia, Russia is bringing pressure to bear on Azerbaijan. Moscow’s intent is to coerce Baku into going along with the Kremlin’s grand plan to remake the Caucasus’ security and energy framework.

Moscow’s chief desire is to keep US and NATO influence in the region to a minimum, and even eliminate it altogether. With Georgia corralled and Armenia effectively in Moscow’s pocket, it would seem that Azerbaijan now holds the key to the realization of the Kremlin’s ambitions.

The Moscow Times also considers that energy as well as geopolitics was at the heart of the meeting and quotes the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute’s Svante Cornell as saying Russia would probably favor a settlement of the conflict on the basis of the “common state” solution proposed in 1998. Interestingly, although Azerbaijan rejected the proposal, the idea was reported as being acceptable to the ethnic Armenian administration in Nagorno Karabakh.

Naira Melkoumian, foreign minister of Karabagh’s self-declared Republic, explains its rationale: “We want to create a common state on the former territory of Soviet Azerbaijan, in which relations between Karabagh and Baku are horizontal rather than subordinate.” Accepting that such an entity would enjoy “something between autonomy and independence,” she continued, “the world need not recognize Karabagh as a state. But Azerbaijan must recognize our right to determine our own laws, political system and, above all, our own defense.”

Nevertheless, while RFE/RL reports that the government says it is satisfied with the talks and Ter-Petrossian’s opposition disagrees, the Eurasia Daily Monitor instead believes that nothing came out of the meeting.

The summit’s only apparent result, however, was a joint declaration that fell clearly short of Moscow’s goals (www.kremlin.ru, Arminfo, www.day.az, November 3, 4). The Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents first held a two-hour, face-to-face session and were then joined by Medvedev for finalizing the declaration. Signed by the three presidents in front of TV cameras, then read out to the media by Medvedev, the five-point declaration does not commit the signatory parties to any specific approaches or actions within the continuing negotiating process. If the Kremlin wished to show “forward movement” after hosting this summit, its hopes were in vain.

Stepanakert, Republic of Nagorno Karabakh © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 1994