RA Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan has left for Moscow to participate in the negotiations over the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, planned on January 23. Because of purely objective reasons there were no particular hopes that the negotiations would be resumed. Recently the President of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan announced that the intensive negotiations will be delayed temporarily because of the pre-election period. In a diplomatic language it means that there will be no negotiations at all because if the intensive negotiators didn’t change much the passive ones won’t change anything for sure.
Having considered all this, the announcement of Oskanyan, who insists that a very interesting document is to be discussed and if a political will is expressed the conflict will be solved, seems very quite unbelievable. Similar announcements were made by the officials of the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan. Baku is also speaking about the “very interesting document.” Moreover, the Azeris claim that they have made efforts to realize the document and a similar step they are expecting from Armenia. In other words, in Baku they think they have done certain compromises for Armenia and they expect the same from Yerevan.
What “interesting document” are they speaking about, which creates so much mutual interest? Azerbaijan and Armenia have got so alienated from each other because of their contradictive demands that it seems there is no way to find angles of cooperation. In order to find the answer to this question it’s necessary to remember the recent political events. Last week despite the fact that EU and the US refused to finance the construction of Kars-Akhalkalak-Tbilisi-Baku railroad (by the way beyond the ocean all the companies are prohibited to participate in this project), the authors of the project decided to realize that with their own money. Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia signed an agreement in Tbilisi and now the Parliament must ratify it. Azerbaijan is most interested in this project. Turkey of course supports the project just like anything done by the brother-states. However meanwhile the Turk experts announced that Turkey does that because of political motives to support Azerbaijan.
Tbilisi relates to the railroad construction if not indifferently then not stimulated much because of his patron – USA. As usual Georgia started to complain about the lack of its budget. This information reached Baku and the latter decided to give over 200 million with a symbolic percentage. However the Georgian government was attacked by the opposition for that. Former Foreign Minister Salome Zurabishvili anxiously announced that she doesn’t understand the actions of the government. She believes that the construction of the railroad may become a dangerous competitor for the sea ports of Georgia. Besides that the road is necessary for Azerbaijan and Turkey first of all. Thus they should build it with their own money. “Why would we take this credit even with minimal percentage rate?” ponders Zurabishvili. Besides that the construction of the railroad will even more isolate Armenia.
As a result during the meeting with the Georgian journalists the deputy-minister of foreign affairs of Armenia, Gegham Gharibjanyan confessed the necessity of opening the border with Turkey on behalf of the Kars-Akhalkalak-Tbilisi-Baku railroad. Ankara and Baku made it clear that it’s not enough. What else can Yerevan offer to participate in that big project? Perhaps the answer of the question is in that “interesting document”.
The Kremlin is ready for the reception of the Prime-Minister of the countries of the South Caucasus. However the interviewee of the 168-Zham newspaper’s journalist categorically refused to give any details about the negotiations. He said that he’s not aware. Time will show what the results are.