– Right after the Washington meeting the Prime Minister of Turkey Rejep Tayip Erdogan stated if the Armenian military forces draw back from the neighboring territories of the NKR the normalization of the Armenia-Turkey relations will speed up. And the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev stated that the Armenia-Turkey process is up to the two countries and no one has the right to interfere. So why did the Presidents of the two countries decided to make such mild statements and has there been any agreement made in Washington?
– We need to wait for some time because a mild statement doesn’t mean a strong incentive. At any rate it is required to hunt down certain motives to ensure that the mild statement is followed by certain actions. Azerbaijan has been mild many times but then transitioned to militaristic rhetoric. This literally happened recently when Aliyev was speaking about the military resolution of the conflict and the foreign affairs minister Mamedyarov was speaking about accepting the Madrid Principles, which was very hard to imagine two years ago because back then Azerbaijan was saying that it won’t ever adopt those. Much sooner than that there were cases when Baku was stating that it’s willing to accept the Tatar version but after that once again started to speak about the military resolution of the conflict of Karabakh. Honestly said, I wouldn’t make a long-run conclusion after DC. A summit took place, where the leading role was submitted by the US. Why is Baku being mild? Because it cannot apparently challenge the US, can it? You will see the new things, revelations and meetings, which will be stemmed from the DC meeting. It is very difficult to say anything concrete about Washington because there are no documents yet. I think that they most probably discussed how they can get rid of this glutted situation.
– How probable is the resumption of war, which Azerbaijan so frequently speaks about?
– I think it is not quite possible because Azerbaijan doesn’t have clear international advantages, which Croatia had in the case of Serbia – military and informational advantages. At the beginning of the war there will be no advantage on part of Azerbaijan. Of course Azerbaijan may start to create some informational advantages by staring to speak about the liberation of the occupied territories and similar such things but the West itself will try to return Azerbaijan to the negotiation process. Believe me, if the military actions are launched the US and the European Union will speak every day that it’s necessary to return to negotiations. This pressure will be there. It means that this war will only make sense if Azerbaijan is able to conquer Stepanakert within 2 days in a blitz way. I don’t think this will happen. As of Armenia, it wouldn’t make sense to start war.
– Was it right to resume the recognition of the genocide process and the normalization of Armenia-Turkey relations prior to the resolution of the NKR conflict? Perhaps it would be better to speak about the mentioned issues after the resolution of the NKR conflict so that the Turkish side wouldn’t link the two well-known issues.
– Perhaps theoretically it would be possible but not in practice because both of the issues are vital. Azerbaijan would hardly agree to wait for its issue to be delayed. And the Turks would hardly be willing to wait for Azerbaijan because they all got their goals and agendas. Armenia as well, was especially interested in the Armenia-Turkey rapprochement process. Armenia has its own visions to separate Turkey a little bit from Azerbaijan by showing that it’s willing to show its willingness of peace and that’s it’s willing to take certain compromises.
– And how does the world envision the resolution of the NKR conflict? Are they for the return of the liberated territories and seeing the NKR in the composition of Azerbaijan and NKR self-determination?
– There are various principles in the world. For example, Iran is principally ready for this regulation but shuns the deployment of peace keepers. Any international presence is accepted with “spears” and fear on part of Iran. It is afraid that the peacekeepers may turn again them in the game of Iran-West. The US and Russia are in general more interested in the status quo and slow progress. Same with the EU. The EU is saying the right words but is not initiating a concrete strategy of resolution. That is the reason why the world is very different. The UN, which adopts resolutions, votes based on certain interests not as much of the concerns to Armenia or Azerbaijan.
– There is an opinion that Russia won’t benefit from the resolution of the NKR and normalization of Armenia-Turkey relations because after that it will lose its influence in the region.
– I think that the parties themselves should and can resolve the conflict and here Russia or any other country shouldn’t have interests here. However, I don’t see these interests so far and the two countries are offering various versions of regulation. There is not actual agreement or compromise yet. What can the US or Russia do? They can help the two Presidents to meet again; they may make recommendations, make compromises, etc. But Russia cannot do the diplomatic work instead of Armenia or Azerbaijan. Same concerns the US, France or any other country. And I think that it’s an incorrect thesis that Russia benefits from supporting the conflict. OK, let’s forget about Russia. But will the side make peace tomorrow. Honestly I am not quite confident of that.
– Sometimes Armenia has difficult inter-political moments. To what extent does this affect the foreign policy – NKR conflict resolution and Armenia-Turkey relations?
– To be honest I would exaggerate the impact of the internal political situation of Armenia on the foreign policy. If we review the statements of Levon Ter-Petrosyan and Serzh Sargsyan regarding the NKR conflict resolution we will see a lot of resemblance. Currently Ter-Petrosyan curses the government for the speedy gap in the rapprochement of the Armenia-turkey relations. But back in the 90s Ter-Petrosyan was basically supporting what the current government stands for. Many of the actions of Ter-Petrosyan have the opposite logic. If I was saying that as government the opposition was wrong but that now I am in the opposition I am right. This is a mirror situation. In 1996 Ter-Petrosyan was pressuring on Vazgen Manukyan and in 2008 the authorities were pressuring on Ter-Petrosyan. In Armenia, just like in other post-soviet countries, the government and opposition often struggle not based on ideological but personal grounds. If we analyze the platforms and actions we see many similarities. Today Ter-Petrosyan says that the government is authoritarian. He is right by 200%. Was his government democratic? Again no. Prior to 1996 perhaps it was democratic but not after that. Afterwards it moved to the authoritarian system. Besides that, in the general political arena of Armenia both Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan are the people brought by Ter-Petrosyan. I wouldn’t like to interfere in the internal affairs of your country. I would especially not like to give advice. It is up to the Armenian people to decide who of the leaders to endorse. If we are speaking about the impact of the foreign policy then it’s pretty powerful. There is some conviction in the west, by which if Ter-Petrosyan comes to power he will recede all his positions. They think the same in Russia. They think that Ter-Petrosyan is a pro-western leader. Secondly, who signed the agreement on deploying a military base in Gyumri? All we need to know is the facts. The Armenian government is neither pro-Russian nor pro-western. They are pro-Armenian and are reflecting the national interests of the Armenian people. Principally the foreign policies of Sargsyan and Ter-Petrosyan are not very different. Perhaps there are some nuances.
– In Armenia we discuss a lot the legitimacy of the incumbent government.
– When there is need we close our eye on the legitimacy of the government. Trust me if there is some progress in the Armenia-Turkey normalization process the west will forget about March 1. They may say that they haven’t heard or seen anything. Or they may seen that it was a group of extremists on the streets, etc. If the west loses its interest in the Armenia-Turkey rapprochement process or if Armenia fails the process it may focus its attention on Ter-Petrosyan and other internal factors. If the pal card is the reconciliation with Turkey then trust me the west just like any player will play on the foreign policy. The west won’t take into account the internal interest. And this is not the know-how of Russia. There are facts that speak that certain expressions of authoritarianism are often ignored, for example in Azerbaijan or Kazakhstan.
– In the origins of the NKR movement who of the three presidents of Armenia has worked the most in the direction of the NKR conflict resolution?
– All of them have tried to resolve the conflict, indeed Ter-Petrosyan as well. Indeed the Armenia-Turkey rapprochement was his idea. He was speaking about this back in the 90s, even before he came to power. As of the NKR case we may remember the stage by stage solution version of Lisbon. And then Kocharyan really froze up both processes. And Sargsyan resumed it. The paradox is that Sargsyan was trying to realize the ideas of Ter-Petrosyan. It’s another thing to what extent he succeeds. Any reconciliation process takes failures, successes, ups and downs. This is not a ruler to think that we are starting from point A and that after some time we will reach the point B. The events of the Middle East and Cyprus showed that there are ups and downs. We have the same situation here. I am sure that there will be no more downs because of various reasons.
– Did the maintenance of the status quo justify itself?
– As a matter of fact the status quo was certified not during Kocharyan’s tenure but sooner. It seemed that Kocharyan didn’t have a very big wish to activate the negotiation process. It is hard to say whether the influence of the status quo was negative or positive. The reconciliation process also contains components of risks. It doesn’t mean that the process started and everything will be OK. We’ll see what this process will bring.
– Is the influence of Azerbaijan on turkey very big and how does Turkey take that?
– In general, there is a common perception that Azerbaijan is a Turkish-speaking brother state to Turkey, which needs help. It is not that Baku has made certain statements and the NATO member state with a population of 70 million got intimidated. There is also some perception like that to Azerbaijan within the Turkish society. That’s how the intentions of Turkey to help Azerbaijan is demonstrated. Besides that there is certain calculation of internal political factors. There is a big number of citizens of Azerbaijani living in Turkey. They have Turkish passports and vote in Turkey. This is not a small factor. They are saying different numbers – 2-3 million but they cannot be ignored as they are voters as well.