YEREVAN: Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has proposed a renewed role in mediation between Caucasus foes Armenia and Azerbaijan, amid a rising push by outside powers for influence in the region.
Speaking in Yerevan on his first visit to the South Caucasus since Russia’s recent military thrust into Georgia, Medvedev said he planned to host peace talks on the war-torn Nagorny-Karabakh region between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan.
“I hope that in the near future a meeting between the three presidents will take place to find a solution to the problem” of the disputed territory, Medvedev said at a news conference with Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian in Armenia’s capital. “I hope it will take place in Russia.”
Nagorny-Karabakh, a region inside Azerbaijan, was seized by Armenian separatists in a 1990s war that claimed tens of thousands of lives, one of several armed conflicts that broke out in the dying months of the Soviet Union.
Medvedev’s initiative comes as the US and Turkey are seeking greater influence in Armenia, a nation that has relied on Russia as its protector.
In a sign of shifting political currents, Armenia took an ambiguous stance on Russia’s conflict with Georgia in August and refused to follow Moscow’s lead in recognising the independence of the rebel Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Sarkisian said Armenia was ready for talks with Azerbaijan on the basis of principles worked out at international negotiations in Madrid last year, meaning that the people of Nagorny-Karabakh gain the right to self-determination.
Soldiers in the Karabakh conflict regularly exchange fire, claiming lives on both sides.
“Armenia is ready to pursue (peace) negotiations on the basis of the Madrid principles,” Sarkisian said.
Medvedev’s visit, in which he presided at the renaming of a central Yerevan square as Russia Square, came amid growing Western attention to the war-torn Caucasus in the wake of the August war with Georgia over the Russian-backed region of South Ossetia.
While the Russian daily Izvestia pointed to Armenia’s isolation and said Russia was its only real friend, other observers believe the conflict in Georgia, which disrupted gas supplies in the region, may spur Armenia into new alliances.
Russia currently has a military base in Armenia and runs the country’s chief energy source, a nuclear power station.
The country is not only cut off from Azerbaijan but also has no diplomatic ties with western neighbour Turkey, reflecting a bitter row over Armenian claims that Ottoman-era killings of Armenians amounted to genocide.
But in the wake of the August war in Georgia, Turkey, historically a counter-weight to Russia, proposed a new format for discussions: a “Platform for Co-operation and Stability in the Caucasus”.
And last month saw a historic first visit to Armenia by Turkish President Abdullah Gul. – AFP
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