Armenian-Azerbaijani talks: Manipulation by Moscow, Brussels, Washington Serhiy Bogdan's review

The Azerbaijani and Armenian  foreign ministers held talks in Moscow on May 19. These followed talks between the two countries in Washington and Brussels. Watching the world players rushing to take part in a peace settlement, it is worth realising that they are not doing so out of humanity, but rather following the logic of modern imperialism. Therefore, the peoples and countries of the South Caucasus should not let the regional peace process out of their hands.

Race for the Caucasus

The rivalry between the various international venues for talks between Baku and Yerevan is unfolding in earnest. Immediately following this week's talks in Moscow between the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia, the next event in the peace process, a trilateral working group meeting of the deputy prime ministers of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia, will take place in Moscow on May 23. They will discuss unblocking economic and transport links, including ensuring communication between the "mainland" part of Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic through Armenian territory.

A trilateral summit with the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan is scheduled for 25 May in Moscow, during which Putin himself will mediate. The Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders had previously held such an event with Putin in Sochi on October 31.

The Russian side has stepped up its efforts amidst recent Azerbaijani-Armenian negotiations in Western capitals. Some progress can be noted in the talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia. After a long break - the last meeting in the Brussels format was held on August 31, 2022 - the two leaders met again in Brussels on May 14 under the mediation of European Council president Charles Michel. The balance of the meeting was, of course, somewhat contradictory: Michel even had to go to the press alone, but, as he was pleased to say, Azerbaijan and Armenia recognised each other's territorial integrity in mathematically precise terms - 86,600 and 29,800 square kilometres respectively. It was also agreed to continue the dialogue on re-establishing transport communications and economic links. And, incidentally, the Azerbaijani side managed to prevent President Macron from attending the Brussels meeting, which Pashinyan tried in every way to attract, hoping in this way if not to pressure Aliyev, then to turn the negotiations into a farce and prolong the negotiation process - a strategic goal of the Armenian leadership at the moment.

The meeting in Brussels took place immediately after the talks between the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia on May 1-4 in Washington, mediated by the US Secretary of State. There, too, they did not make any loud statements, but the American side assured that there was a result from the meeting.

Russian interest

One could say that seeing all this, the Russians are simply in a hurry to seize the initiative in the peace process in the Caucasus. However, it is not only this desire to get ahead of the West that is interesting in Russia's actions. There are interesting new changes in Moscow's attitude to the Armenian leadership itself. The fact that Moscow does not agree to turn the CSTO into a tool for implementing the expansionist plans of Armenian nationalists in the South Caucasus has long been clear. Now the processes have gone further: Russia, in particular, is not going to interfere in the issue of the Azerbaijani checkpoint on the border with Armenia. As Stanislav Pritchin, an expert of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IMEMO), close to the Russian government, says, "I doubt that the sides will reach an understanding on this issue. Baku has established it on its internationally recognized border. And the mandate of Russian peacekeepers does not provide for passport and customs control at the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan. This will cause protests from the Armenian side for some time.

The Armenian side also complains loudly not only about the "inaction" of CSTO. Now Yerevan is outraged that Russia has not yet delivered the weapons it ordered, saying the contracts are "worth hundreds of millions of dollars". However, it is unclear how sincere the members of Pashinyan's team are in voicing these remarks - after all, they are simultaneously referring to these points in order to justify again the fundamental tenet of their ideology about the need for Armenians to "get away from Russia".

But shifts in the Kremlin's policy rather reflect not ideology, but an actual growth in the importance of ties with Azerbaijan against the backdrop of stagnation or even decline in Russian-Armenian relations. Moscow has more and more compelling reasons to reconsider its priorities in the South Caucasus. On May 17 evening, it became known that Russia and Iran agreed to complete the missing section of the Rasht-Astara railway. If fully implemented in less than four years, it will significantly increase the interconnectedness of Russia and Iran - if Azerbaijan agrees to this.

The cost of the issue is indeed high. The Russian liberal establishment immediately trashed the idea, saying there are already roads - the eastern and trans-Caspian corridors of the North-South ITC. What is the need in railroads for - you may transport by automobiles? All three objections are missed. The infrastructure of the eastern corridor is much weaker than that of the western Azerbaijani route. The trans-Caspian option is an additional burden on ships, even if the infrastructure is in place, fraught with increased costs and complexity. Road transport makes sense only for small volumes. Bottom line: There is no alternative to the Azerbaijani option.The planned completion of the Resht-Astara section will allow - even taking into account the different gauges of roads - to carry cargo from the Persian Gulf itself or even the Indian Ocean to any point in Russia by rail. If implemented, the project would change the geopolitics of a huge part of the continent. With the Black and Baltic seas effectively closed to safe Russian commercial shipping, the European part of the Russian Federation now has a major problem - it has lost its reliable access to the world's oceans. At a meeting with Putin this week, there was even talk of rerouting Russian oil exports from Baltic ports to the Northern Sea Route in the face of sanctions! But this is by no means a one-size-fits-all solution, as cargo from all over the world can be delivered to the main industrial areas of the Russian Federation faster and cheaper via Iranian ports than via the Northern Sea Route. All this can be done only in cooperation with Azerbaijan, and Armenia can either join this process of geopolitical transformation by normalizing relations with Azerbaijan and Türkiye or continue its political adventures trying to sell itself to the West as a bastion of Christianity/democracy/liberalism... - write in the appropriate phrase.

The Kremlin also has to revise its policy towards the South Caucasus and Armenia because of its growing dependence on Türkiye. The scale of this dependence was demonstrated again the other day by the decision to extend the Ukrainian grain export deal with Turkish mediation. It is no wonder: the main still functioning channels of communication between Russia and the outside world - from air traffic to the banking system - depend on Türkiye; there are no alternatives to them today.

Absurd proposals

It is important not to confuse the fussy desire of the big international players to get involved in the peace process and the real results of this process. In short, we need to be clear about to whom these results have been achieved. First, the scale of progress should not be exaggerated. Western politicians may talk about progress, but they set the bar pretty low, seeking only a framework document, rather than a comprehensive agreement. This approach will allow them to use the disputes between Baku and Yerevan - on the delimitation of borders, the unblocking of communications, etc. - for years or even decades to come. - to further their interests.

Yerevan's position now looks more constructive at first glance, but when it comes to concrete details, absurd situations arise. For example, on May 18, Pashinyan declared his readiness to unblock communications in the region as soon as possible "based on the principles of sovereignty and the eligibility of the parties". However, if we consider his statement in context, it turns out that it also refers to the so-called "Lachin corridor", with all its consequences in the form of an uncontrolled supply of separatists and rotation of Armenian troops, illegally staying on the territory of Azerbaijan.

Or, in the same speech, Pashinyan notes that recognition of each other's territorial integrity will help to establish stability in the region and come to the signing of a peace treaty. But this sensible idea is immediately followed by another, bewildering one - Pashinyan immediately stresses the importance of starting a dialogue between Baku and the "authorities" of the Karabakh separatists. This is with the people who have built up the separatist project and are not even now going to give up the dismemberment of Azerbaijani territory! For example, the same David Babayan, an adviser to the separatist leader, proclaimed again on May 17: "We do not want to discuss the issue of rights and security or any other issues within Azerbaijan, under whatever mechanisms". By the way, he makes almost daily statements of this kind - only the platforms and stylistic features of the statements change, because, as Babayan explains, "You have to speak to each country in a language it understands. For example, if it is #America, we speak the language of #democracy". Therefore, when Pashinyan offers Baku to have a "dialogue" with such forces, it looks absurd, turning the negotiation process into a wandering circus, wandering between world capitals. Of course, Pashinyan also links this kind of dialogue and subsequent agreements to the involvement of the international community, insisting that "the format of the Stepanakert-Baku dialogue should take place within an international mechanism".

Right now we cannot

The revanchist circles in the Armenian establishment are probably hoping to "fish in troubled waters" of rivalry between major world players for the right to play a decisive role in the peace process in the Caucasus. And there are plenty of those willing to muddy the waters. After the meeting in Moscow, Aliyev and Pashinyan are likely to meet in Chisinau on June 1, on the margin of the summit of the European political community. French President Macron and German Chancellor Scholz will be present. In July the Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders are again planning to hold talks in Brussels with Michel - and Macron is likely to try to come again.

There are a couple of nuances to this universal desire for peace. First, it is extremely dangerous for the South Caucasus to allow the region and its problems to become an arena of rivalry between global adversaries - the entire recent history of the developing world, from Afghanistan to Somalia, clearly shows what the propensity to solve regional problems through the involvement of global superpowers leads to. However, many people of the Armenian establishment strive for exactly that - the same secretary of the Armenian Security Council Grigoryan reiterated recently that the future of the Karabakh people is linked exclusively with the "international community", and therefore "Armenia has long lobbied for sending an international observation mission to Karabakh. At least an observation mission.

Secondly, the current mediators have rushed towards peace, following the logic of modern imperialist politics. Within this framework, separatist projects and disputes of non-western states become a truly "perpetual engine" for imperialist policies. So, at the talks in Brussels, the chairman of the European Council urged Baku to "make efforts to ensure the rights and security of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh" - as if Azerbaijan itself could not understand the importance of the rights and security of its citizens of all ethnic origins. Michel generally calls on Baku to take care of its citizens "together with the international community" - over the Azerbaijani authorities Brussels wants to put its own wardens.

But here, Brussels politicians are attacking the wrong people. The Azerbaijani government's policy demonstrates precisely both an understanding of the risks involved in relying on superpowers and powerful blocs to solve their problems and a bet that the key guarantor of the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity is the armed forces of Azerbaijan as a tool in the hands of the people of Azerbaijan.

By the way, Russian experts say that the agreement by the Azerbaijani and Armenian sides to continue negotiations in Moscow is something of a surprise, saying that previous rounds of talks in Western capitals have not led to a reduction in tension and fighting on the line of contact. But in fact, it is just as natural. The Azerbaijani army's ability to prevent a "re-freezing" of the conflict forced Pashinyan to go to more and more rounds of talks.

In fact, the recipe for peace is that peace should be built by those directly affected by war and peace in the region - the peoples of the region and their governments. At the time, the United Nations Development Programme insisted that the projects it supported around the world should in fact "belong" to the social groups and peoples in whose interests they were made, i.e. that they should be closely tied to them. This concept of ownership is highly relevant to the fundamental premise of a successful peace process in the South Caucasus.

Azerbaijan's position, as we know, is this, and President Aliyev, during a recent visit to Shusha, clearly advocated discussing a peace treaty in a bilateral format without mediators. Alas, too often Armenian leaders try to shift this responsibility to someone else, to reassign ownership (of the peace process) to foreign mediators, facilitators and guarantors, the "international community" or at least Macron. Amazingly, following this approach, they are simultaneously in their third decade of independent existence lamenting: "We need to make sure that our institutions serve only Armenia... Right now, we cannot, but in the long term, we can and will. By the way, about Zvartnots. Everyone remembers that Russian border guards were sitting there not so long ago, but there are Armenian guards now too. So, there is progress. But sovereignty is a long way off. With an approach based on a desire to shift responsibility for the protection of Armenia from Russia to the West, to Iran, with a maniacal desire to introduce if not foreign troops into Armenia and neighbouring territories, then at least police guards, the Armenian leadership will by definition never be able to reach its declared goal, i.e. sovereignty. Everything would be reduced to replacing one overseas guardian with an overseas one and this approach is hopelessly flawed in terms of the development of a peaceful and prosperous South Caucasus and Armenia itself in it.