The outcome of the Kazan meeting, which lasted approximately three and a half hours, appears to be a major setback for the mediating powers’ peace efforts, which have gained momentum and raised fresh hopes for a long-awaited breakthrough in recent months. After the meeting the parties released a statement on NKR conflict resolution.
The short statement circulated by the Kremlin said Armenia’s Serzh Sargsyan and Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev met on June 24, 2011 in Kazan reached a “mutual understanding on a number of issues whose resolution would help to create conditions for the approval of the basic principles.” The brief and incomprehensive test of this statement makes is clear that the meeting that was preliminarily planned to last two hours, lasted over an hour longer, proceeded in a quite environment. At any rate, we can assume from the text that no concrete agreement was reached in Kazan. Perhaps this was expected from the interview of Sargsyan and Aliyev given to Euro News two days ago. Aliyev said that they were not intending to offer something for what belongs to them. “NKR belonged to Azerbaijan for centuries and it was an internationally recognized territory of our country. We are willing to provide broad guarantees of security to the refugees and people, who’d wish to move to live in NKR. But it’s possible only in conditions of peace,” said Aliyev. We are against unilateral compromises and can accept only mutual compromises. This was stated on the same day to the same TV channel by the President of Armenia. If Azerbaijan doesn’t agree with the idea of self-determination, how can that country’s government declare that it intends to continue the negotiations and find ways to resolve the conflict based on the Madrid Principles? This is what RA President Serzh Sargsyan said during an interview with "EuroNews". Sargsyan reminded that that document presupposes the fulfillment of three principles, including no use of force, territorial integrity and the right to self-determination. And so as a result of these contradictive statement, it was predictable that nothing tangible would be achieved in Kazan. People hoped that a landmark agreement would be reached in Kazan after the statements of the Presidents of Russia, US and France made in Deauville a month ago. The co-chairs in Deauville urged the presidents to reach an agreement in Kazan. The U.S. President Obama telephoned the presidents and made the same appeal. The president of France sent messages to the presidents. However, the Azerbaijani side proposed about a dozen changes in the result of which there was no breakthrough at the meeting in Kazan. And such statements and requests would be heard almost every day. In any case, the meeting, I think, was useful in the sense that detailed talks continued. And importantly, President Medvedev who has had a great contribution to this process expressed his readiness to continue efforts towards agreement on principles and reach a final agreement on them. This has been the 12th meeting of the sides for the past three years. However, in the past year this has been the fourth time Azerbaijan offered new changes and proposals. This is the reality. The President reaffirmed the message expressed in the joint statement with the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs President Nicholas Sarkozy and President Medvedev that the moment has come for all the sides to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to take a decisive step towards a peaceful settlement. Although these statements were formulated very diplomatically but those implies certain pressure on the parties. Yesterday during the whole day the international media was following the process and assuring that a document will be signed on the basic principles of the NKR conflict resolution. “A document will be signed, which includes the road map of the conflict, which has been stretched for 20 years now. The basis of this document will be the Madrid Principles, submitted by the OSCE Minsk Group in 2007, which were previously denied by Yerevan and Baku,” yesterday wrote the Russian Komersant, by quoting the sources of Baku and Yerevan, which said that the conflict has never been so close to resolution. The Russian media outlets also wrote that a document consisted of 14 clauses will be signed in Kazan. Let us recall that the basic principles consist of 14 clauses. None of the presidents made any public statements after the talks that lasted for more than three hours. The Russian, Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers also attended them. The outcome of the Kazan summit appears to be a major setback for the mediating powers’ peace efforts, which have gained momentum and raised fresh hopes for a long-awaited breakthrough in recent months. Speaking to journalists, Nalbandian said that Aliyev presented “about a dozen changes” in the basic principles which were unacceptable for the Armenian side represented by President Serzh Sargsyan. He did not specify those changes. Official Baku did not immediately react to these claims or comment on reasons for the Kazan fiasco. Aliyev’s office said only that the Azerbaijani leader also held a seprate meeting in the Russian city with U.S., Russian and French diplomats co-chairing the Minsk Group. It gave no details. The Armenian side has always said that it supports the Madrid Principles. During the whole last month statements were made that the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan will negotiate in Kazan over the new version of the principles, which the foreign affairs ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan Nalbandyan and Mamedyarov discussed on June 11. However, on the other hand in their statement the leaders of the countries agreed on the mutual understanding on a number of issues whose resolution would help to create conditions for the approval of the basic principles. Let us remember that before the meeting they made a statement that only a few provisions were left to agree upon and we may assume that the parties did not agree on these few questions. They would have hardly adopted a basic document during a trilateral meeting. It’s clear that besides Russia the US and France also play an essential role in this process and of course a profound document couldn’t possibly be signed without the representation of the mentioned two countries. And if the parties agreed on a fee matters than in the near future these discussions will continue in the format of the Minsk Group. At any rate, the statement developed in Kazan is so unclear that two conflicting assumptions may be drawn. “I understand that this statement is an interim consent and the rest of the developments are pending. Let us not forget that the conflict is pretty complex and abstruse. But this matter is moving forward. It seems like an unclear and not very inclusive statement but I see certain positive lights in there. This process is moving stage by stage. Diplomacy not only expresses thoughts but also conceals those,” this is how en expert of the Armenian Center of Political and International Studies Ruben Mehrabyan commented on the statement made in Kazan. The head of ARF Hay Dat office Kiro Manoyan thinks that yesterday’s statement was merely an attempt to save the meeting. “They understood that they had agreed but also realized that there were issues as well. They have clarified the issues, which they didn’t agree to. But the expectations of the international community didn’t come true. And I think the reason for that was the attitude of Azerbaijan. Their public attitude didn’t even give any hope for resolution,” says Manoyan. After the meeting of the Presidents Mamedyarov and Nalbandyan are supposed to meet the co-chairs of the Minsk Group today. Perhaps after that broader statements will be made, which will make it more clear what was discussed in Kazan and was matters that have agreed or disagreed upon.