A month after clashes that left 286 dead between Armenians and Azerbaijanis – the heaviest toll since the resumption of fighting in 2020 – Russian President Vladimir Putin has brought together the belligerents for a summit in Sochi, in the south-west of Russia. These two former Soviet republics have been fighting over control of Nagorno-Karabakh since the 1990s, alternating between direct clashes and positional warfare.
“In our common opinion, it was a very useful meeting which created a very good atmosphere for possible future agreements”, affirmed the Russian president at the end of the tripartite summit. “For its part, Russia will do everything to find a final and comprehensive settlement” of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, he assured, adding that“it is in everyone’s interest to normalize relations”.
In a joint declaration adopted at the end of the summit, Baku and Yerevan pledged to “do not use force”as well as’“to settle all disputes solely on the basis of recognition of mutual sovereignty and territorial integration”. They also pointed out “the importance of active preparations for the conclusion of a peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia in order to ensure a lasting and long-term peace in the region”.
Traditional role of referee
Constrained for eight months by its offensive against Ukraine, which has caused embarrassment to Moscow’s traditional partners, Mr. Putin wanted, thanks to this summit, that Russia regain its traditional role of arbiter in this unstable region, where Westerners are carrying out their own mediation efforts.
The Russian president first spoke one-on-one with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. “The most important thing is to ensure peace and create the conditions for development”, Mr. Putin told Mr. Pashinian. The latter, for his part, stressed that his priorities were the Azerbaijani withdrawal from the areas of Nagorno-Karabakh in which the soldiers of the Russian peacekeeping forces are deployed, as well as the release of prisoners of war.
The Russian President then received his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliev, who thanked him for giving a “momentum to the standardization process”.
More than 6,500 deaths in 2020
The fall 2020 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which left more than 6,500 dead on both sides, ended in an Armenian military rout and a Moscow-sponsored peace deal. However, sporadic clashes continued to break out, despite the presence of Russian soldiers, whether in Nagorno-Karabakh or on the recognized border between the two countries, in September in particular.
These Russian-sponsored talks come at a time when Western capitals have taken a more active part in mediating the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, and the French President, Emmanuel Macron, thus organized negotiations between MM. Pashinian and Aliev in Brussels in August.
Russia, which takes a dim view of these initiatives in a region it considers its own backyard, and the European Union have exchanged sharp criticisms of their respective mediation efforts. Mr. Macron notably accused Russia of wanting “destabilize” the peace process, Vladimir Putin denouncing remarks “unacceptable”. “Russia has always sincerely sought to resolve conflicts, including with regard to Karabakh”argued Mr. Putin in mid-October.
Turkey, an ally of Baku, has also made mediation efforts, its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, having recently met MM. Aliev and Pashinyan in Prague.
Nearly 30,000 dead in the 1990s
Ahead of the negotiations, Mr. Pashinyan announced on Saturday that he was ready to extend the presence of the 2,000 Russian peacekeepers for up to 20 years, saying he hoped for a proposal from Mr. Putin to this effect. .
The Azerbaijani president, on the strength of his military victory in 2020, has sworn to repopulate Karabakh with Azerbaijanis, while this region mainly inhabited by Armenians has escaped Baku’s control since a first war – which had killed nearly 30,000 people – in the 1990s, at the time of the break-up of the USSR.