Big nuisance for Baku
Presidents of Armenia and Russia adopted a joint declaration based on the results of the two-day visit paid by Armenia’s president Serzh Sargsyan to Moscow on March 14, which is comprised of 8 points.
According to the joint declaration, adopted as a result of negotiations, Armenia and Russia will continue expanding economic cooperation, the sides are targeted to develop integration projects within Eurasian space, coincidence of positions of Armenia and Russia within UNO, CIS, CSTO, Council of Europe, BSEC, other international organizations give ground for closer foreign policy, Armenia and Russia will continue strengthening the role of CSTO as a security guarantor of CSTO member countries, Russia and Armenia will continue military-technical cooperation bilaterally.
Pursuant point 6 of the declaration presidents of Russia and Armenia confirmed their commitment to settle NK conflict exclusively in a peaceful way, which should take place based on the following principles: exclusion of force or threat of force, territorial integration and the right of nations to self-determination, under this point the presidents enshrined importance of implementation of agreements reached in Vienna and in St. Petersburg in 2016 and pushing the process to peaceful direction. Sargsyan and Putin stressed the dialogue related to protection of borders. Pursuant the last point of the declaration Russia and Armenia will in any way support maintenance and strengthening of spiritual and cultural closeness of the two countries.
Stanislav Tarasov, Russian analyst told “168 Hours” that the statement entirely expressed nature of Armenia-Russia relations. In his words the Armenian side may from time to time express its discontent from the fact that the Russian Federation pursues its own interests in the region, however, on NK conflict zone present-day policy pursued by Azerbaijan is against Russian interests.
“For this very reason the Russian side doesn’t save efforts to possibly separate itself from talks on Russia-Azerbaijan deals, impression of which the Azerbaijani side attempts to leave for a lasting period. On the level of Russia’s president, Foreign Minister and Armenia’s Ambassador to Russia it doesn’t miss the chance to insist that Russia acts jointly with other OSCE MG Co-Chairs, issue of whose at the moment is preventing conflict escalation,” Tarasov said.
He considers there is nothing extraordinary in the statement. Tarasov is of the opinion that points referring to NK conflict settlement and CSTO, Eurasian integration projects were noteworthy.
“These are the topics that currently bother the Armenian side. First, the conflict appeared at a deadlock due to suspended negotiations, and in CSTO serious disagreements are observed, when there is necessity to reflect to security threats of CSTO member countries, in this case under infringements on Armenia-Azerbaijan border, when it’s required from Russia to “revenge”, for which some partners don’t save this platform discrediting it, at the same time, realizing that they have no any way out either.
The section covering Karabakh reflected Russia’s approach: agreements reached in Vienna and St. Petersburg should be implemented to stabilize the situation. This is a big nuisance for Baku, which does its best to fail those agreements, Baku still continues if not with the MG, then having hopes with Moscow, the latter seems to bring the negotiations out from MG format, launching a separate pro-Azerbaijani program, however, Moscow proves that it’s beyond those projects urging to reckon with the MG.
Finally, if Azerbaijan refuses the scenario of resolution through force, and its refuses, as it has no supporters, then it should accept previous year’s agreements,” Stanislav Tarasov said. On the whole, Tarasov qualified the statement as a sobering “slap” to Azerbaijan.
According to Alexander Skakov, political scientist, although recent visits of Armenia’s president Serzh Sargsyan exclusively pursue internal political purposes, it was successful to use it for foreign policy purposes as well, recording rather curious results. “If you pay attention, Sargsyan’s visit to Brussels, Paris and Moscow was successful, in the three capitals Armenia’s president received important statements from his counterparts.
In Brussels it was stated on signing of Armenia-EU agreement, for the first time the topic of sanctions was touched upon in NK conflict settlement as a mechanism of restraint, in addition to trust mechanisms, enshrined in Vienna and St. Petersburg, and in Moscow Sargsyan succeeded to solve both domestic and foreign policy issues,” Skakov said. According to the latter from internal political perspective Sargsyan attempted to introduce his projects to Moscow and receive support, as obviously, Armenia’s president has no plans to put down the leadership.
According to the Russian analyst there is an impression that, however, Moscow isn’t against, if we observe results of Putin-Sargsyan meeting. Commenting on the statement by the Co-Chairs, Skakov considered it rather capacious. He believes that the statement had a few addressees—West, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan.
“Allegations on deep Armenia-Russia partnership, then provision on positions of Armenia and Russia was a clear message to the West that Armenia may have an agreement with the EU, however, in its important fields Armenia agrees its policy, positions with Russia within works in international organizations, deepens economic, integration ties with it.
Presidents’ reflection to CSTO wasn’t accidental, here each solved his issue, Russia expressed discontent to Kazakhstan and Belarus, which don’t support this organization, moreover, they fail from the perspective that it expressed single posture of the presidents of Armenia and Russia on installation of security mechanisms.
There was incorrect impression that Armenia and the US were interested in this issue, and Moscow particularly isn’t interested in measures to stabilize the situation like Azerbaijan. However, this statement neutralized many doubts in this regard,” Alexander Skakov said.
By Araks Martirosyan
