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ANY KARABAKH TALKS 'BETTER THAN NONE'
news.az
Aug 17, 2011
Azerbaijan
News.Az interviews Andrei Areshev, an expert at Russia's Strategic
Culture Foundation.
How do you assess the prospects for a resolution of the Karabakh
conflict after Russia's recent mediation efforts seemed to yield no
significant results?
After the relatively unsuccessful summit in Kazan, Russia has continued
its diplomatic activity. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
visited Yerevan and Baku, while the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and
Armenia visited Moscow. Given the absence of reports about the results
of these first post-Kazan talks at the level of foreign ministers,
no progress was achieved and the presidents needed to be involved to
discuss the resolution of the conflict at the highest level, but in
the format of individual bilateral meetings with the Russian president.
The presidents of Azerbaijan and Russia met recently, mainly to
discuss Karabakh. How do you assess the results of this meeting,
considering the information in the media?
The presidents of Russia and Azerbaijan did meet and clearly managed to
clarify some points from the Kazan meeting and about the Azerbaijani
position on a settlement. It was said officially that the dialogue
was constructive and lasted quite a long time.
Some observers started to say right after the Kazan meeting that
Russia would not give up its mediation efforts and would organize
one more trilateral meeting to achieve a breakthrough.
But this optimism does not seem too well grounded to me. However,
the fact that negotiations and consultations are continuing is already
positive, because in the Nagorno-Karabakh situation, any talks, even
endless ones, are better than none. The Russian president made it
clear in his recent interview before 8 August, the third anniversary
of the tragic August events [Russo-Georgian war], the consequences
of which are well-known.
Parallels are often drawn between the events in Georgia and the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement. What are the main differences
between these situations?
In my opinion, parallels, of course, can be drawn, but only to
a certain extent. Of course, every situation - in South Ossetia,
Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh - has its own specifics. I think the
similarity of these situations is that the events of 08/08/08 began
to develop according to a scenario that was obviously not the one
intended by those who started this reckless scheme or pushed it in
one way or another.
There is more and more evidence that it was Georgia and Georgian
politicians who held high office at that time who initiated this. We
are free to read all their statements on various news websites.
It seems to me that in the event of renewed hostilities in Karabakh,
events may evolve in an equally unexpected fashion and not in
accordance with any planned scenario. It seems this is the main lesson
to be learned from these events.
From: A. Papazian
news.az
Aug 17, 2011
Azerbaijan
News.Az interviews Andrei Areshev, an expert at Russia's Strategic
Culture Foundation.
How do you assess the prospects for a resolution of the Karabakh
conflict after Russia's recent mediation efforts seemed to yield no
significant results?
After the relatively unsuccessful summit in Kazan, Russia has continued
its diplomatic activity. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
visited Yerevan and Baku, while the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and
Armenia visited Moscow. Given the absence of reports about the results
of these first post-Kazan talks at the level of foreign ministers,
no progress was achieved and the presidents needed to be involved to
discuss the resolution of the conflict at the highest level, but in
the format of individual bilateral meetings with the Russian president.
The presidents of Azerbaijan and Russia met recently, mainly to
discuss Karabakh. How do you assess the results of this meeting,
considering the information in the media?
The presidents of Russia and Azerbaijan did meet and clearly managed to
clarify some points from the Kazan meeting and about the Azerbaijani
position on a settlement. It was said officially that the dialogue
was constructive and lasted quite a long time.
Some observers started to say right after the Kazan meeting that
Russia would not give up its mediation efforts and would organize
one more trilateral meeting to achieve a breakthrough.
But this optimism does not seem too well grounded to me. However,
the fact that negotiations and consultations are continuing is already
positive, because in the Nagorno-Karabakh situation, any talks, even
endless ones, are better than none. The Russian president made it
clear in his recent interview before 8 August, the third anniversary
of the tragic August events [Russo-Georgian war], the consequences
of which are well-known.
Parallels are often drawn between the events in Georgia and the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement. What are the main differences
between these situations?
In my opinion, parallels, of course, can be drawn, but only to
a certain extent. Of course, every situation - in South Ossetia,
Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh - has its own specifics. I think the
similarity of these situations is that the events of 08/08/08 began
to develop according to a scenario that was obviously not the one
intended by those who started this reckless scheme or pushed it in
one way or another.
There is more and more evidence that it was Georgia and Georgian
politicians who held high office at that time who initiated this. We
are free to read all their statements on various news websites.
It seems to me that in the event of renewed hostilities in Karabakh,
events may evolve in an equally unexpected fashion and not in
accordance with any planned scenario. It seems this is the main lesson
to be learned from these events.
From: A. Papazian