Azerbaijan: It's Back to the Drawing Board for Karabakh Talks

Tensions have subsided between Azerbaijan and the mediation group charged with overseeing talks with Armenia over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Even so, any progress that had been made toward a lasting peace settlement appears to have been lost.

At an April 15 meeting of the regional cooperation bloc GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova) in Baku, Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said that Azerbaijan expects new proposals from the current international mediators for continuing the negotiations with Armenia on a Karabakh settlement. Mammadyarov also expressed willingness to meet with Armenia's newly appointed foreign minister, Eduard Nalbandian.

"If the ministers will come to an agreement, the meeting of the presidents could happen," Mammadyarov said, referring to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and recently inaugurated Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

In recent weeks, Azerbaijani officials have complained about deficiencies in the peace process, venting much of their frustration on the OSCE Minsk Group, the entity co-chaired by France, Russia and the United States. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Now Baku may be willing to engage Armenia in the so-called Prague Process, but the Azerbaijani government insists that peace talks must start from scratch. At several points in recent years, it appeared that Baku and Yerevan had sketched out the parameters of a deal. That no longer seems to be the case.

"It is important for us that Armenia will accept the conflict resolution principle within the framework of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity. The international community accepted it, and Armenia has to do the same," Mammadyarov said. Autonomy for Karabakh within Azerbaijan is one possible topic for discussion, he continued. In the past, Karabakh's separatist leaders and Armenian officials in Yerevan have categorically rejected such an arrangement.

Chances for any discussion getting off to a dramatically fresh start appear slim, as enmity between the two neighbors remains high. For example, Aliyev refused to meet with Sarkisian at the April 2-4 North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Bucharest. In addition, each side blames the other for a series of cease-fire violations in February and March. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

While Baku has refuted reports that it intends to push for the mediators' immediate replacement, some experts believe that the government is keeping its discontent in reserve, to bring pressure on the Minsk Group in the future as needed.

Public and government frustrations with the mediators have not abated since all three Minsk Group co-chair countries voted against a March 14 United Nations resolution that recognized Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan. In an interview with the Interfax news agency, Aliyev stated that Azerbaijan had expected the countries to abstain, not to oppose the measure.

Political analyst Rasim Musabekov believes that the UN resolution was the result of Azerbaijan's dissatisfaction with the latest proposed terms for a conflict resolution, including continuing Armenian control over the Lachin corridor linking Karabakh with Armenia. "Azerbaijan does not agree with these proposals and the UN resolution in fact toughened its position," Musabekov said.

While maneuvering on the diplomatic front, Azerbaijan is proceeding with a rapid military buildup. An increase in state revenues means that the government plans to increase military spending in 2008 from an initially planned $1.3 billion to $2 billion, Aliyev announced at an April 14 cabinet meeting.

Musabekov contends that a $2 billion military budget is a factor that both Armenia and the Minsk Group mediators will need to take into account. As energy revenues continue to flow, Baku's military spending is only likely to increase. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The spending will put Azerbaijan within range of larger countries such as Ukraine, "which obviously has a much larger military capacity," he said.

Sizeable military spending does not mean a move in the near future to retake Karabakh by force, experts said. "An imitation of negotiations will continue for some time, the presidential elections in Azerbaijan will happen, and so on," commented Elkhan Shahinoglu, director of the Atlas political research center.

Government officials have not responded to a March 25 comment by US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Matthew Bryza that "some political forces in Azerbaijan for some reason are trying to create tension in relations between Baku and Washington."

Experts have dismissed the remark as "not serious."

"Most likely it was a diplomatic move aimed to reduce tension and to switch public attention in Azerbaijan from criticism of the Minsk Group to debates over the existence of some pro-Western and anti-Western forces in the government. It is not serious," Shahinoglu said.

Rasim Musabekov agrees: "Of course, there are champions of closer relations with the United States [within the Azerbaijani government] and those who are against it. However, in the context of the UN resolution and generally the Karabakh conflict, Baku's dissatisfaction with Russia is much higher than with the United States."

"We have a wide partnership in many areas and it is developing," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Khazar Ibrahim stressed.