In fact Russia failed to organize a meeting with participation of the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan on May 8. Aliyev simply refused to take part in the non-official CIS summit and meet with president Serzh Sargsyan.
Furthermore, the Azeri foreign minister Elmar Mamediarov refused to take part in the meeting of Minsk Group co-chairmen in Brussels on May 11-12. If Aliyev brought at least logical reason why he could not visit Russia (he said Armenia is governed by people who took part in the liberation of Shushi), the reasons the Azeri foreign minister brought can be insulting not only for Armenia, but the MG and co-chair countries. According to the official spokesman of the Azeri foreign affairs ministry Elhan Polukhov, Mamediarov did not meet with the MG because he was very busy. It is hard to remember when in the past Azerbaijan had such negligence to the MG and Armenian party. Azerbaijan demonstrated that it can be against Russia and Russia’s wish, and the Azeri foreign affairs minister made the world understand that they will not give up on their demands and the meeting with the Armenian party would serve an impression that they are compromising. The Armenian foreign minister Edward Nalbandyan is going to meet with the MG co-chairmen in Brussels. “In the current phase the co-chairmen of Minsk Group should work more with the Armenian party because despite the official Baku, Yerevan has not expressed its standpoint toward the new principles of Madrid,” said Polukhov. According to him the next step in the process of Karabakh conflict settlement should be a complex agreement over the conflict settlement. “For this purpose the Armenian party should express its viewpoint about the new principles of Madrid,” he said.
It is worth mentioning that Azerbaijan has already adopted the draft of the new principles of Madrid and now it is Armenia’s turn but the authorities are not doing it yet. Whenever they need they just say that the process of negotiations is based on the principles of Madrid. But they don’t say a single word about the new version of the draft of principles. The principles of Madrid were developed in the end of 2007. In July of last year the co-chairmen of the MG discovered the six provisions of the principles of Madrid, in which the first provision concerns the return of lands to Azerbaijan. The issue of Karabakh’s status was in the fourth place and should be decided after giving the lands. Indeed the Armenian authorities assure that for Armenia the priority is the status of Karabakh. Even there was some information that the issue of the status was in the first place. Definitely it was in the first place, but it lost its priority before the provisions were discovered and since that announcement definitely the new version of the principles is the same document with a different sequence of provisions as we mentioned above. Accordingly, we may assume that the discussed version is less favorable to Armenia than the principles of Madrid. It means that the principles of Madrid are not discussed anymore and instead of that the new version is being discussed, which is a result of negotiations in 2007-2009. And when the government of Armenia claims that they agree with the principles of Madrid, it means that they don’t agree with the new principles as they were discovered, which means that the parties are going back to the situation before July 2008. However, in the first phase the Armenian authorities had a positive reaction to that announcement.
Now it seems that the negotiations over Karabakh have moved to another non-official level. Today the Russian president Dmitry Medvedev will visit Turkey, where one of the main topics of discussion will be the issue of Karabakh conflict settlement. Medvedev has announced that during this visit a new mechanism of inter-government consultations will be established. “The high level cooperation council will operate under my control and the Turkish prime minister Rejep Tayyip Erdogan’s control. The purpose of the creation of this institution is the development of the main directions and strategies of the Russian-Turkish relations, coordination of the implementation of important projects and development of ties between the businesses of the two countries,” said Medvedev and added that another goal of this institution would be the agreement of the foreign policies of these countries for the purpose of international peace and stability. After this meeting the Turkish prime minister Erdogan will leave for Azerbaijan. In the future Medvedev is going to visit Armenia too. It means that the negotiations may be moved to another format in the region in non-formal participation of Russia-Turkey, and Iran as well. In addition, Azerbaijan is boycotting the work of the Minsk Group but has not denied to intermediary support of Iran.
MP from RPA Hovhannes Sahakyan says that it is normal that Russia is active in the region and Azerbaijan boycotts. “Eventually Aliyev understood that the stance he has adopted cannot bring support to the entire process. From this point of view Aliyev has to either recognize Karabakh’s independence or start a war. We are almost excluding the possibility of a war because it is not about Azerbaijan and Armenia only. And the only thing Aliyev can do is to give up on his offended position and consult with his advisors to recognize Karabakh’s independence. It is natural that the president of Russia protects the interests of his country being the head of this super-state but it is not decisive. He may have active relations with Turkey but we have announced our standpoint concerning the relations between Armenia and Turkey and the conflict of Karabakh,” says H.Sahakyan.
The Heritage faction is concerned of the improvement of relations between Russia and Turkey. “As a result of close relations between Russia and Turkey in the beginning of the century we lost the Eastern Armenia, Karabakh and Nakhijevan. Such things may be possible now too. However I hope Russia will be pragmatic this time and will not let its strategic partner of many years down,” says Armen Martirosyan, head of the Heritage party board.