The meeting of the two delegations
The historic dialogue recently started between the Azerbaijani government and the Armenians of Karabakh seemed to open some cracks, but the firefight of recent days and the related victims are putting a strain on the ongoing negotiations
In a rare public occasion, officials from Azerbaijan and the breakaway Nagorno Karabakh region, populated mostly by Armenians, met on March 1. The meeting, overseen by Major General Andrey Volkov, commander of the Russian peacekeeping contingent tasked with enforcing the November 2020 ceasefire declaration, hinted at a glimmer of negotiations.
Furthermore, for the first time, Baku had appointed a special representative, the deputy Ramin Mammadov, to speak with the representatives of what until then it had considered authorities in fact illegitimate and separatists who oppose power over what the international community considers Azerbaijani sovereign territory. Opposite him was the secretary in fact to the national security of Karabakh, Samuel Shamranyan.
“This is the first time a political representative has met the Armenians of Karabakh,” said Ahmad Alili, director of the Baku-based Caucasus Policy Analysis Center (CPAC). “Up to this moment we have only had moments when the Armenians of Karabakh e [funzionari minori e tecnici] Azerbaijanis held meetings on various topics such as water management, this time there are political representatives”.
Accompanying Mammadov were members of a special monitoring team tasked with probing the exploitation of Azerbaijan’s natural resources. This alleged exploitation would also be the reason behind the de facto blockade of the strategic Lachin Corridor, which has been in place for over 87 days due to the actions of self-styled government-backed environmental activists.
At the moment, the transport of humanitarian and medical aid along the route is limited to vehicles belonging to the Russian peacekeeping contingent and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The issue of the Lachin Corridor dominated the recent meeting between Azerbaijani and ethnic Armenian officials.
Among the issues discussed at the March 1 meeting was also the repair and restoration of the electricity supply from Armenia to Karabakh and the uninterrupted supply of natural gas which also passes through the territory of Azerbaijan. However, according to some media, Mammadov also raised the issue of reintegrating the ethnic Armenian population of Karabakh into Azerbaijan proper.
The authorities in fact of Karabakh immediately denied these claims stating that the delegation refused to discuss the matter with Mammadov and is still calling for independence from Azerbaijan. Also, on March 7, the leadership in fact of Karabakh even said that Baku would threaten “more drastic steps” if such aspirations were not abandoned.
“I want to state once again that it is not just a decision of the Security Council, but the vast majority of our people accept that we will not deviate from our right to independence and self-determination,” said Arayik Harutyunyan, the president of unrecognized Karabakh and besieged. “And that means that in the near future we will have different developments and situations that we will have to deal with.”
Neither the international community nor the Republic of Armenia supports such demands: Yerevan focuses only on guarantees for the rights and security of the ethnic Armenian population. Therefore, Alili believes that “Azerbaijan wants to cooperate with Karabakh and Baku wants to show that there is a possibility of coexistence.”
However, any hopes that some tangible dialogue mechanism was finally in place between the parties were dashed a few days later. On 5 March, two Azerbaijani soldiers and three Armenian policemen were killed in a firefight that erupted in the separatist region. Each side blames the other for what was the worst episode of violence in Karabakh this year.
Azerbaijan claims that Karabakh policemen were carrying weapons, while the Armenian side accuses Baku of having orchestrated the incident, even going so far as to define it as “terrorism”. In a March 7 statement, Azerbaijan’s defense ministry threatened to take “decisive and necessary measures using all possibilities to disarm and neutralize illegally armed men.”
Against this backdrop, many are now skeptical of the prospect of talks between Baku and Stepanakert, the de facto capital of the breakaway region.
“This recent attack has definitely affected [i colloqui del primo marzo]Benyamin Poghosyan, director of the Yerevan-based Center for Strategic Political and Economic Studies (CPES) told Osservatorio Balcani Caucaso Transeuropa. “Not only the attack, but also the ultimatum of Azerbaijan to disband the NK defense force and establish a checkpoint on Lachin or otherwise [affrontare] new attacks”.
“I think this shows that we currently have no basis for meaningful negotiations between Azerbaijan and NK, so I don’t see how these meetings can continue,” he concludes.
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