Nagorno-Karabakh: "We cannot afford more years of inaction"
The capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, Stepanakert, suffered extensive shellfire on October 4, 2020. Karo Sahakyan / Armenian Government / AFP
Text by: Achim Lippold Follow
5 mins
In Nagorno Karabakh, the fighting is intensifying day by day.
The bombardments are increasing on Stepanakert, the capital of the self-proclaimed territory of the Armenian separatists.
For the moment, no political outcome is looming on the horizon.
A first mediation meeting is being held this Thursday in Geneva (and next Monday in Moscow), but the two belligerents should not meet.
How to envisage a political solution and who could initiate it?
Achim Lippold spoke with Thorniké Gordadze, teacher at Sciences Po Paris, former Georgian minister responsible for European integration.
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RFI: Who holds the key to starting a dialogue?
Thorniké Gordadze
: I think that the dialogue should be facilitated by the regional powers which have influence over the belligerents.
These regional powers are above all Russia and Turkey.
I think the West, the European Union and the United States, also have influence and can come back to the region.
Their weight has decreased significantly in recent years as they were more active in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Mediation meetings are being organized this Thursday in Geneva and next Monday in Moscow. The aim is to open negotiations between Azerbaijan and Armenia. What do you think are the necessary conditions to start a dialogue?
The first condition would be the cessation of hostilities.
We could start talking while continuing the military confrontation.
But in that case the negotiations would be really influenced by the situation on the front lines.
In order to have peaceful negotiations, the regional powers, namely Russia, Turkey, the European Union and the United States, should also be motivated to move forward in the negotiations towards a final peace treaty.
It has been 26 years since hostilities stopped in 1994, 28 years since the Minsk group (Russia, France, United States) has existed (since 1992), but these efforts have yielded nothing.
This is also the reason why the conflict erupted again a few days ago.
We cannot afford years of standing still.
We should move forward in the negotiation process.
Europeans and Americans are not sufficiently motivated?
There is no lack of motivation on the part of Europeans and Americans.
What is currently lacking is rather the lack of weight of these two actors in the region.
Regarding Turkey and Russia, Turkey directly supports Azerbaijan.
Ankara believes that Azerbaijan must reclaim the territories that its ally lost in the 1990s to reverse the course of negotiations in favor of Azerbaijan.
Russia is procrastinating: for the moment it has not really engaged in the conflict and is content with declarations calling on the belligerents to cease fire.
How can we explain the behavior of Russia
?
The behavior is motivated by two factors.
First, Russia, which signed a treaty guaranteeing the territorial integrity of Armenia, is not very involved in the conflict because the current Armenian government is not to the taste of the leaders of Moscow.
This government came to power following a popular and peaceful revolution two years ago.
And you know what Moscow thinks about this kind of revolution.
That said, Armenia remains an ally of Russia.
The Armenian authorities have also tried to reassure Moscow because they do not have many alternatives to guarantee the security of their country.
But Russia has less affinities with this government than with previous ones.
Russia is not rushing to defend Armenia as it did before.
And in addition, Russia is trying to rebalance its relations with Azerbaijan which has shown it has another powerful ally in the region, namely Turkey.
In fact, by deepening its alliance with Turkey, Azerbaijan has increased its value to Russia and is now demanding more concessions from Moscow.
So Russia's restraint is not about weakness, is it tactics?
Yes it is tactics.
But at the same time, Moscow is worried about the strengthening of ties between Turkey and Azerbaijan and does not want to lose Baku completely.
I believe that Russia will intervene more decisively if Azerbaijan goes further and attacks Armenia directly and not just adjacent regions of Karabakh occupied by Armenia.
Russia does not want Azerbaijan to obtain a complete victory, and to take back all the occupied territories but also Karabakh.
In this case, Russia would lose leverage over both Armenia and Azerbaijan.
I think Russia is in a wait-and-see position and will make its position known at some point if Azerbaijan goes a little too far for its liking.
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