Experts on Moscow's push for "Minsk agreements" for Karabakh

Baku/24.03.23/Turan: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's speech in Yerevan on March 20, following talks with his counterpart A. Mirzoyan, has been welcomed by most in Azerbaijan.  Commentators liked Lavrov's lack of overt support of Armenian demands for talks between Baku and the separatists, overseen by foreign diplomats, to work out some kind of special status. Other analysts in Baku share their concerns in FB, seeing Russia's policy as a pitfall against Azerbaijan.

First, let us briefly recall Lavrov's speech.  He believes that security guarantees for Karabakh Armenians must be solved between representatives of Khankandi and Baku. He has ruled out engagement with the West to resolve the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan and other related issues. Russia cites the Minsk agreements with Kiev as a model for us: "This is the right to their native language, to educate their children in this language, to live, work using it, to preserve their culture, religion, to have opportunities for local self-government and to have special economic and trade relations with their compatriots (in the case of Donbass it was Russia, - note Lavrov)," the Russian Minister said.

Roughly the same rights, he continued, "were envisaged in the agreement signed ten years ago between Belgrade and Pristina. "The same set of rights would be necessary for Karabakh people as in any other similar situation: Donbass, Kosovo and Serbian regions of Kosovo, Nagorno-Karabakh (in the context of the commitment by the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to the Alma Ata declaration of 21 December 1991".

Russia is in favour of implementing "strictly in full, without any improvisation" all the trilateral agreements that have been reached between the Presidents of Russia and Azerbaijan and the Prime Minister of Armenia. First of all, the agreements that were signed on the night of 9 to 10 November 2020.

"The problem of the Lachin corridor should be considered exclusively in this context. Only the full implementation of the Lachin corridor aspects of the agreements can 'resolve' the current situation," Lavrov said.

Former Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Tofik Zulfugarov outlined the situation in Karabakh and the region, which Russia intends to "resolve":  "Russian, US and European discontent that Azerbaijan's 'conflict management system' through its influence on separatists ceases to be an instrument of political influence; support from certain foreign circles for the Armenian position is conditional on coincidence with Armenian policy, which wishes to continue the conflict confrontation; the Armenian elite is preparing the Armenian population and Armenians of Karabakh for new casualties in the name of goals that cannot be achieved.

"We are left with no choice but to conduct a forceful operation on the territory under provisional control of the RPC and to de-occupy the remaining territories. Threats of sanctions or resolutions cannot be an obstacle for us in realizing our policy of restoration of sovereignty and territorial integrity in accordance with the country's Constitution," Zulfugarov said.

Farhad Mammadov, head of the South Caucasus Research Center, advises Russia to know that it is not Moscow that "brought Mirzoyan to his feet"; rather, Yerevan obeys Moscow after recommendations by the West, particularly the EU. It is the Europeans who advise Pashinyan not to go for a further deterioration of relations with Russia at this stage, since Russia is "on the ground". The EU has few resources "on the ground" - only a sham in the form of an EU mission to Armenia, of which few in Baku remember anymore when talking about a security threat to Azerbaijan from Armenia. "This is nothing more than an attempt by the Armenian leadership to buy time with the help of Russia at the recommendation of the Europeans.

Mammadov warned Yerevan, which is avoiding the signing of a peace agreement, that the military escalation would be aimed at "the military infrastructure of the Armenian armed forces in Karabakh and the operation to set up checkpoints. The Armenian armed forces can be brutalized on the conditional border, so that they feel threat to themselves, then they become more talkative. It has been proven over time. The new reality will also allow progress on the diplomatic track.

He also advises Baku to think about the possibility of sanctions by the West against Azerbaijan, to prepare for them.

Historian Eldar Ginesli opposes Lavrov's plan for local self-government (LSG) for Armenians, following the example of the Minsk agreements. He writes in FB: within certain frameworks LSG is acceptable and even useful and practiced, as, for example, in the issues of distribution of local and state budgetary funds - local authorities know better where to allocate funds for the economic and social development of the region. However, in the context of the mentioned Minsk agreements on Donbass, an issue of "local self-governance" takes on a special meaning. Lavrov believes that the rights of Armenians should be the same as they are reflected for residents of Donbass, which is controlled by the Russian Armed Forces.

E. Ginesli draws attention to the text of the agreement on Donbass (2015). "It says much less about language than Lavrov said, but more emphatically about 'the right to linguistic self-determination', which I understand in our context should ensure the right to use only the Armenian language not only in the educational process, but also in bureaucratic correspondence... And there is also this article in the agreement: '11. Constitutional reform in Ukraine with the entry into force by the end of 2015 of a new constitution, which envisages as a key element the decentralization (taking into account the specificities of certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, agreed with the representatives of these areas), as well as the adoption of permanent legislation on the special status of certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, in accordance with the measures indicated in the note, by the end of 2015.  It also envisages the creation of people's militia units by decision of local councils in order to maintain public order in certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions".

Lavrov also cited an agreement between Belgrade and Pristina (Kosovo) (the 2013 Brussels agreement) as a supposedly acceptable option for Azerbaijan.  The pro-Kremlin media then called this agreement "Serbia's capitulation". But it is being offered to us.  In spring 2018, the case there went so far as to have Belgrade's special representative in charge of Kosovo negotiations deported from Pristina on charges of border violations, the historian recalled.

"The status offered by Russia to the separatists in the Karabakh region, if we evaluate it according to the Donbass or Pristina versions, is incomparably higher than even the one in the NKAO of the Azerbaijan SSR," Ginesli warned.-0-