[REGNUM] Washington, Yerevan, Ankara and Baku began to rush, fearing the emergence of a Russian project in Transcaucasia after the Ukrainian crisis, which could change the course of events. It should not be overlooked that, despite the strong desire of Armenia and Azerbaijan to solve problems behind Russia's back, they will be forced to resume peace negotiations with her participation.
In Munich, on the sidelines of a security conference, a trilateral meeting was held between US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. It lasted an hour and a half, and it was, as Blinken himself said, about the use of Baku and Yerevan "a historic opportunity to establish a lasting peace after more than 30 years of conflict."
Experts drew attention to the fact that earlier the United States, when organizing such meetings at different levels, designated its mission as "mediation". This time, there is no such definition in the comments of the State Department on the results of the meeting.
Washington believes that Yerevan and Baku heard his calls "to enter into a direct dialogue in order to reduce tensions in relations," that is, to withdraw Russia from the peace process. At the same time, Baku is strongly recommended to stop acting in tandem with Turkey, which stipulates the signing of a peace treaty between Azerbaijan and Armenia with a number of conditions.
Attempts to ignore Russia are already being observed.
At the end of 2022, under the pretext of the Lachin crisis, Yerevan refused to participate in the meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan in Moscow, at which it was planned to discuss a peace treaty between the parties. Yerevan then did not even notify Moscow through official channels of its refusal. According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, "he learned about it from a press release."
On the eve of the Munich conference, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said at a press conference that Moscow was ready to hold a new trilateral meeting at the level of foreign ministers with Azerbaijan and Armenia "for further movement towards stabilization within the framework of existing agreements."
The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, specified that it was necessary to move away from “freezing the negotiation process through the resumption of work on all tracks for normalization, including the unblocking of transport communications, delimitation of the border, the conclusion of a peace treaty and contacts through civil society.”
Yerevan practically did not respond to such calls.
Moreover, on February 15, 2023, Pashinyan announced at a government meeting that Yerevan had handed over to Baku “its draft of a coherent agreement with Armenian proposals,” which Armenia is ready to sign “as soon as possible.”
Thus, Pashinyan’s “formula of action” acquires the logic of step-by-step measures: first, a peace treaty with Azerbaijan is signed, and its parameters consider the issues of delimiting the border and unblocking transport communications on a bilateral basis.
This completely eliminates the Russia-Azerbaijan-Armenia trilateral agreement of November 9, 2020, which stopped the second Karabakh war, and all subsequent peace agreements. Moscow can be involved in this process, but not in the status of an intermediary, but as a consulting party providing geographical maps and something else.
In addition, the heads of the ministries of foreign affairs of the EU member states agreed to send a long-term monitoring mission to Armenia on the border with Azerbaijan, which creates a complex and confusing situation in the region.
Apparently, this aspect of the peace treaty was actively discussed by Aliyev and Pashinyan at the meeting with Blinken.
The Azerbaijani president qualified this dialogue as "constructive". Speaking at a panel discussion in Munich, Aliyev and Pashinyan virtually ignored Moscow's peacekeeping efforts.
The President of Azerbaijan stated that he is close to the approach of Washington and Brussels, which divide the negotiation process into two separate tracks: the negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the establishment of contacts between Azerbaijan and the Armenian population of Karabakh. He also said that "he will not allow external forces to interfere in our internal affairs, Karabakh is Azerbaijan."
As a result, Russia's participation in the work on a peace treaty between Baku and Yerevan is called into question.
But Baku also believes that if Yerevan recognizes the borders of Azerbaijan in 1991 (when Nagorno-Karabakh was part of Soviet Azerbaijan) in the new peace treaty, then the mention of Karabakh is inappropriate, since the problem of the Armenian enclave living there becomes an internal affair of Azerbaijan.
Armenia wants the rights and security of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh to be mentioned in the agreement as a separate clause. The United States is also in favor of fixing in the treaty a provision on the rights and security of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Azerbaijan is still against this, although it cannot be ruled out that it will compromise approaches in this direction, but without international guarantee mechanisms. He still opposes the wording in the peace treaty of "international mechanisms to ensure the rights and security of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh."
But there is a third track - Turkish.
The point is that Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan visited Turkey. According to Turkish publications, at a meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, he resolved specific issues related to "accelerating the preparation of infrastructure for the opening of land communication between the two countries."
By all indications, a summit meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pashinyan and the restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries "without linking relations between Baku and Yerevan" are being prepared.
Earlier, Ankara and Yerevan had already reached an agreement on direct air transportation and approved the decision to open the land border for third-country nationals. That is, a new process is taking place: the separation of the Armenian-Turkish agenda itself from the Armenian-Azerbaijani one.
According to the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet, there are certain reasons for this.
Relations between Turkey and its Western partners are complex. The West openly accuses Erdogan of seeking to establish an authoritarian regime in the country, ignoring the principles of European-style democracy. Accordingly, Ankara is facing the problem of losing confidence in its foreign policy.
“ Due to the fact that Turkey has previously lost confidence in the eyes of its allies or neighbors in the region, it, frankly, was hardly bothered by the fact that Armenia was also among these neighbors,” writes Hürriyet . “ As a result, her chances of becoming a truly important regional player in the South Caucasus instantly vanished. At the same time, Turkey is confident that out of the entire set of existing complex foreign policy problems both in the West and in the Middle East, it can make a breakthrough precisely in the Armenian direction, which will not only change the geopolitical situation in the Transcaucasus, but also pave the way for Ankara to Europe ".
As we can see, the next geopolitical intrigue in the Transcaucasus is based on some nuances that are not always heard publicly.
The dynamics of the development of events in the region is such that nothing can be ruled out and almost all participants in the Transcaucasian geopolitical mystery must have a backup strategy. But for now, we see the active efforts of Washington, combined with new impulses received during the Munich agreements between Blinken, Aliyev and Pashinyan.
In general, one gets the feeling that Washington, Yerevan, Ankara and Baku are in a hurry, fearing the emergence of a Russian project in the region after the Ukrainian crisis, which could change the course of events. It should not be overlooked that, despite the strong desire of Armenia and Azerbaijan to solve problems behind Russia's back, they will be forced to resume peace negotiations with her participation. After all, it may also happen that one of the conflicting parties uses a technological device in diplomacy with the Americans in order to politically compromise the positions of the other side.
At the moment, gaining historical time may suit Armenia, because there are always some problems on the way to signing a peace treaty with Azerbaijan, and Azerbaijan has not yet been able to convert the victory in the Karabakh war into a sustainable peace agreement. Moscow still has arguments to continue the "Transcaucasian party" with the most diverse participation of external players. So the main events are ahead.
February 20, 2023
Stanislav Tarasov