NEGOTIATION PROCESS - UNDER WAY

The meeting between Eduard Nalbandyan and Elmar Mamedyarov, organized in Strasburg on May 7, was the first practical step undertaken by the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group following the presidential elections of Armenia. The initiative was aimed at clarifying the issue of resuming the Karabakh settlement talks.
Both the political and the personal motives of first meeting of the Foreign Ministers are conceivable in context of resuming the talks. The fact that after the February 19 presidential elections and the subsequent formation of the new government the official Yerevan met the international community’s demand to follow the principle of succession in the process of the Karabakh peace talks was strictly important in political terms.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about Azerbaijan which tried to take advantage of the temporary suspension of the talks with the purpose of having a pro-Azerbaijani resolution passed by the UN General Assembly and transferring the further talks to the plane of unilateral principles.
As shown by the March 14 voting, the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group do not approve of official Baku’s endeavors of bringing their negotiation partner and the international community face-to-face with the accomplished fact.
This means that Azerbaijan can no longer approach the negotiation table with the outcomes of its “independent activities” of the past months, since the international community anticipates the parties to express a clear-cut attitude towards the basic principles introduced by the Co-Chairs of the Minsk Group on November 29, 2007. And despite the Azerbaijani diplomats’ recent attempts of blackmailing the international community and assuring their society that the talks will continue based on the ill-famed Resolution of the General Assembly, it is actually the basic principles introduced by the Co-Chairs that serve as a basis for proceeding with the talks.
With the purpose of continuing the discussion of those principles, the mediators of the Minsk Group are trying to organize the first meeting between the two countries’ presidents during the month of June. In this connection, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov has made the following statement, “We’ll let the Presidents know about the outcomes of our meeting, and they will make a decision on organizing a meeting on their level.”
The Azerbaijani diplomat also mentioned that after the May 7 discussion the leaders of the two countries may find it necessary to organize a new meeting between the Foreign Ministers. It turns out that apart from the Foreign Ministers, it is also necessary to obtain the consent of the Presidents in order to organize the high level meeting between Serge Sargsyan and Ilham Aliev during the month of June.
Clearly, the Azeri diplomat’s ambiguous hint implies the possible disagreement of the Azerbaijani rather than the Armenian President, because the Armenian party needed a temporary suspension of the talks before the February 19 elections, while the Azerbaijani leadership is facing that problem now.
It is now the Azerbaijani leadership that needs a time-out; therefore, it is quite possible that after receiving the Foreign Ministry’s report on the outcomes of the meeting with E. Nalbandyan, E. Mamedyarov may try to find some pretext for avoiding the negotiations.
During the presidential campaign of Armenia, the settlement of the Karabakh conflict was just one of the numerous issues of the country’s political agenda, whereas for the Azerbaijani opposition, it may become a key factor prior to the October 15 elections. Therefore, Baku is currently arriving at the conclusion that the meeting between the two countries’ presidents (if organized at all), will be a formal, demonstrative event.
It’s clear that Armenia also realizes the possibility of a time-out during the coming months, but the question is whether the Co-Chairs of the Minsk Group think the same way. Judging by the statements, they are almost sure that unlike Armenia, Azerbaijan will not have a new leader on October 15, so they do not see the necessity of suspending the talks for an additional period of 6 months.
After the Foreign Ministers’ meeting which heralded the fact of resuming the talks, the Co-Chairs of the Minsk Group are unlikely to have an “understanding approach” towards the possibility of the “time-out” anticipated before October 15. They would rather organize a purely formal, demonstrative meeting between the two countries’ presidents for confirming the fact of resuming the talks on a higher level than allow the Azeri President to use the coming month for pronouncing bombastic speeches and questioning the progress attained in the negotiation process during the past years.
To avoid the threat of “colored technologies” (to be imposed on Azerbaijan by the West and first of all, the United States) and serious internal political instabilities, Ilham Aliev will probably choose to participate in the upcoming high-level talks, acting behind the mask of a lamb on the international arena and behaving like a wolf inside his own country.
VARDAN GRIGORYAN

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NEGOTIATION PROCESS - UNDER WAY
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