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RUSSIA WANTS TO REVIVE KARABAKH PEACE PROCESSES OUTSIDE THE FRAMEWORK OF EXISTING MECHANISMS
PanARMENIAN.Net
01.10.2008 18:21 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The South Ossetian crisis will not constitute a
precedent, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the Federation
Council's Foreign Affairs Committee on September 18. "We will continue
to responsibly fulfill our mediation mission in the negotiation process
and peacemaking that fully applies to the conflicts of Transdniester
and Nagorno Karabakh," he said, Eurasianet reports.
The signal the Kremlin wants to send is that "it is not restoring
its empire and that it is ready to reconcile warring parties while
playing a leading role in the process," wrote Sergei Markedonov of
the Moscow-based Institute for Political and Military Analysis in
the September 16 issue of Russia's "Kommersant" daily.
Russia has been expending a lot of energy since the August crisis to
revive the Transdniester and Nagorno Karabakh peace processes outside
the framework of the existing international settlement mechanisms.
Concerning Karabakh, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met twice in
September with his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sargsyan and once with
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. "It seems to us that there is now
a good basis for a resolution of the conflict, which would fit with
the interests of all states and would be based on the principles of
international law," Aliyev said after his meeting with Medvedev on
September 16. He did not elaborate.
Russian diplomats are now trying to arrange a Sargsyan-Aliyev meeting
that would be hosted by Medvedev.
In its peacemaking efforts, Moscow has found unexpected support from
Turkey. In the midst of the August Georgian-Russian crisis, Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan proposed launching a Caucasus
Stability and Cooperation Platform (KIIP), modeled on the 1999
Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe. In Erdogan's view, the KIIP
should bring together five regional states - Russia, Turkey, Armenia,
Azerbaijan, and Turkey - with a view to acting as a comprehensive
conflict prevention mechanism, as well as an instrument to foster
confidence, democracy and economic prosperity in the Caucasus.
With the exception of Georgia, all regional countries have welcomed
the Turkish initiative, and Russia has offered to help get the project
off the ground.
There is also an element of suspicion in Yerevan. Armenian opposition
leaders in particular see Turkey's proposed KIIP as an attempt to
supplant the OSCE's Minsk Group as the chief mediator in the Karabakh
peace process. President Sargsyan's administration has dismissed
those concerns, insisting that it intends to keep on working with
the Minsk Group, of which the United States, France and Russia serve
as co-chairs.
In a commentary published September 24 in the International Herald
Tribune, Turkey's Foreign Minister Ali Babacan - whose country is a
member of the OSCE Minsk Group - said the KIIP was "not designed as
an alternative to any institution, mechanism, or any international
organization that deals with the problems of the Caucasus." What
Ankara is offering, he said, is "an additional platform to facilitate
communication between countries of the region, a framework to develop
stability, confidence and cooperation, a forum for dialogue."
Not everyone agrees with that view, however.
For Sinan Ogan, the chair of the Ankara-based TURKSAM think tank,
the existing international mechanism has demonstrated its inability
to solve the Karabakh conflict. "Therefore," he wrote in Turkey's
Today's Zaman daily, "one may expect the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk
Group in the days ahead and its replacement with a new mechanism to
be generated within the framework of the [KIIP]."
PanARMENIAN.Net
01.10.2008 18:21 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The South Ossetian crisis will not constitute a
precedent, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the Federation
Council's Foreign Affairs Committee on September 18. "We will continue
to responsibly fulfill our mediation mission in the negotiation process
and peacemaking that fully applies to the conflicts of Transdniester
and Nagorno Karabakh," he said, Eurasianet reports.
The signal the Kremlin wants to send is that "it is not restoring
its empire and that it is ready to reconcile warring parties while
playing a leading role in the process," wrote Sergei Markedonov of
the Moscow-based Institute for Political and Military Analysis in
the September 16 issue of Russia's "Kommersant" daily.
Russia has been expending a lot of energy since the August crisis to
revive the Transdniester and Nagorno Karabakh peace processes outside
the framework of the existing international settlement mechanisms.
Concerning Karabakh, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met twice in
September with his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sargsyan and once with
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. "It seems to us that there is now
a good basis for a resolution of the conflict, which would fit with
the interests of all states and would be based on the principles of
international law," Aliyev said after his meeting with Medvedev on
September 16. He did not elaborate.
Russian diplomats are now trying to arrange a Sargsyan-Aliyev meeting
that would be hosted by Medvedev.
In its peacemaking efforts, Moscow has found unexpected support from
Turkey. In the midst of the August Georgian-Russian crisis, Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan proposed launching a Caucasus
Stability and Cooperation Platform (KIIP), modeled on the 1999
Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe. In Erdogan's view, the KIIP
should bring together five regional states - Russia, Turkey, Armenia,
Azerbaijan, and Turkey - with a view to acting as a comprehensive
conflict prevention mechanism, as well as an instrument to foster
confidence, democracy and economic prosperity in the Caucasus.
With the exception of Georgia, all regional countries have welcomed
the Turkish initiative, and Russia has offered to help get the project
off the ground.
There is also an element of suspicion in Yerevan. Armenian opposition
leaders in particular see Turkey's proposed KIIP as an attempt to
supplant the OSCE's Minsk Group as the chief mediator in the Karabakh
peace process. President Sargsyan's administration has dismissed
those concerns, insisting that it intends to keep on working with
the Minsk Group, of which the United States, France and Russia serve
as co-chairs.
In a commentary published September 24 in the International Herald
Tribune, Turkey's Foreign Minister Ali Babacan - whose country is a
member of the OSCE Minsk Group - said the KIIP was "not designed as
an alternative to any institution, mechanism, or any international
organization that deals with the problems of the Caucasus." What
Ankara is offering, he said, is "an additional platform to facilitate
communication between countries of the region, a framework to develop
stability, confidence and cooperation, a forum for dialogue."
Not everyone agrees with that view, however.
For Sinan Ogan, the chair of the Ankara-based TURKSAM think tank,
the existing international mechanism has demonstrated its inability
to solve the Karabakh conflict. "Therefore," he wrote in Turkey's
Today's Zaman daily, "one may expect the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk
Group in the days ahead and its replacement with a new mechanism to
be generated within the framework of the [KIIP]."