Future of S. Caucasus largely depends on understanding between Azerbaijani, Armenian leaders: Russian expert

Doctor of Historical Sciences, senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of World Economy and International Relations Alexander Krilov shared his views on the upcoming meeting of Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents in Munich, Nov. 22.

“I would not limit significance of this meeting only to the Karabakh problem. It is much more, and is dictated by the radical changes in the Caucasus region and in the international arena,” he said.

“The Madrid principles provide a return of so-called "security zone" to Azerbaijan, granting interim status to Nagorno-Karabakh, security guarantees and self-government, keeping the corridor between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, defineding final legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh in future based on legally binding will, the right of all internally displaced persons and refugees to return to their former places of residence and, finally, international guarantees of security and peacekeeping operations,” Krilov said.  

Krilov also believes that "the way of mutual concessions is unrealistic, because neither society nor the political elite in Azerbaijan and Armenia are ready to the proposed mutual concessions.”

“There is no even a minimum confidence between them without which compromise is impossible. Therefore, the key factor is the external pressure on both sides, the paragraph about international security guarantees and peacekeeping operations,” Krilov added.

“Political scientists have already begun to speculate about transfer of the Caucasus, "into the Kosovo team" of American diplomacy. This is further evidence of the high degree of outside forces’ interest in deployment of their troops to Azerbaijan and Armenia. One can endlessly speculate about in what form the Kosovo scenario would be applied to in the South Caucasus. Maybe it will not be applied at all.”

“But it is clear that the deployment of troops of other countries severely limits sovereignty of Azerbaijan and Armenia. In this case problems of the region will be dictated not by the parties to the conflict, but other states which actually happens in the Balkans and other conflict regions. Can one believe that the interests of foreign states is solely peaceful settlement and that they make no attempt at a convenient pretext to establish political and military control over the strategically important region? This would be an extreme political naivety,” he said.

“In fact, the question is whether Azerbaijan and Armenia remain as independent subjects of international relations or their sovereignty will be severely limited. I think that Azerbaijan and Armenia have common interests in this situation more than ever before. They are equally interested in the fact that they does not become a plaything in the hands of external forces and in preserving their own independence and sovereignty,” Krilov said.

In fact, future destiny of the South Caucasus is being determined now. Yet the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia have an opportunity to influence developments. Future of the South Caucasus largely depends on whether the leaders will succeed  to reach understanding in the  forthcoming Munich meeting,” Krilov said.

T. Teymur
Day.Az