Last June Armenia started violating the ceasefire established in 1994, causing one of the most hostile and violent offensives since the end of the conflict over Nagorno Karabakh. The ceasefire infringement caused the prompt reaction of the Azeri army that opened fire on the enemy lines in reply to attacks. Since the beginning of the hostilities 5 casualties have been attested: 4 Armenian and 1 Azeri soldiers. Between the 12th and the 17th of July, moreover, the Armenian troops opened fire everyday, 4 or 5 times per day, with an average duration of the gunfire of 20-30 minutes. Since the end of the war, and notwithstanding the persisting occupation of 20% of Azeri territory by the Armenian army, the two countries never seemed closer to the chasm of a new war.

The OSCE

The 3rd of June the OSCE Minsk Group sent two mediators, coordinated by the Groups French Chair, in order to start negotiations with the self-proclaimed government of Nagorno Karabakh. The US mediator Bradtke and his Russian counterpart Popov, met the President Sahakian and the Minister of Defence Hakobian in order to elaborate proposals for the peace negotiations held in Almaty, aside the OSCE informal ministerial meeting in June the 17th.

The official communiqu, set about at the end of the Almaty meeting, however, does not provide any concrete basis for negotiation and is, instead, an empty and rhetoric declaration of principles subscribed by the representatives of Russia, USA and France, without a proper involvement of the Azeri and Armenian governments. In view of the OSCEs impotence in the Southern Caucasus, Russia gains political space to (re-) emerge as regional power.

The role of Russia

It is proved that, during the war of Nagorno Karabakh (1988-1994), Moscow provided weapons and logistic support to both Armenian and Azeri troops, thus significantly increasing the destructive capacity of the conflict. This strategy allowed Russia to keep control over the region, maintaining a political and military influence on two countries with a strong pro-western centrifugal tendency.

Notwithstanding this, experts tend to exclude any direct or indirect involvement of the Kremlin within the latest Nagorno Karabakh crisis. Indeed, they rather deem that the Soviet policy of divide et impera ran out of Moscows control.

According to Vugar Bayramov, director of CESD research centre based in Baku, the ongoing Russian energy policy on the Caucasus does not suit a radical destabilisation in the regional balances. However, according to Bayramov it is undeniable that the latent Nagorno Karabakh conflict provides Russia a pretext to be present both militarily and politically in the Southern Caucasus.

Russias role of a regional major power is given by the military partnership with Armenia (they are both part of the CSTO security organisation, moreover Russian-Armenian troops are lined up in the 102nd Russian military based in Armenia) and the economic partnership with Azerbaijan. The Kremlin is therefore in a privileged monopolistic position, with no western competitors, in both security and economic issues.

Russia has, therefore, the potential to impose a conflict resolution on the parts, or at least to be a credible mediator. However a definitive solution over Nagorno Karabakh would deprive Moscow of its fundamental role of stability-keeper in Southern Caucasus. It is very unlikely that the ongoing Russian-led negotiation will effectively bring to a solution. It is rather possible that Russia will exploit the peace process in order to gain economic and political power. Armenia and Azerbaijan, indeed, need a third force as grantor for the implementation of the agreement and not EU, nor NATO and OSCE seem capable to play this role. In order to obtain a progressive shift of the region into its own sphere of influence, Russia has nothing to do but keeping the status quo in the Southern Caucasus. Thus Moscows position can be defined as rentier in a political sense.

The Russian energy policy

Through its foreign policy Russia aims at imposing itself as the major world-wide energy provider. The vast territory of the Federation, indeed, allowed the Kremlin to acquire a significant leverage of blackmailing in energy issues (and the consequent political influence) with Europe and China.

The Kermlins policy consists of a land division between western and eastern Russia gas fields. This would allow, indeed, a distributive differentiation providing China with Siberian gas (the Gazprom-CNPC agreement has been signed in December 2009) and Europe with Caspian gas.
Azerbaijan plays a primary role within this complex chessboard. The purchase of Caspian gas by Gazprom aims not only to respond to the European demand of energy but also and especially to satisfy the Azeri demand of stable economic and political partnerships, filling the gap left by the lack of a proper European foreign policy.

Since the beginning of 2010 Medvedev managed to weave a thick net of relations with Yerevan and Baku, establishing a table of negotiation that, although valueless regarding the resolution of the Nagorno Karabakh crisis, have the merit of bringing Moscow nearer to the Azeri government of Ilham Aliyev.

As a consequence to this renewal relation between Moscow and Baku, Gazprom reached an agreement with SOCAR, the Azeri state company, granting the purchase of gas for 250 US dollars per 1,000 cubic meters, two times the price that Turkey pays, and granting, moreover, a progressive increase in the volume of gas purchase from 1 trillion cubic meters in 2010 to 2 trillions in 2011. With this move the Kremlin proved to dispose of the political and economic capacity to buy its own partners and inhibit any European and Turkish competition in the Caucasus.

Conclusion

The failures of OSCE and the emergence of a strong Moscow connection allow Russia to behave as a political monopolist in Southern Caucasus. EU, NATO and OSCE do not only demonstrate to be aphasic in front of the crisis but also show their incapacity to build groups of interest in competition with Russian ones. EU and NATO, indeed, are progressively losing ground in favour of the Russian economic, military and political competition.

A resolution of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict would not only allow a cheaper and secure passage of the Caspian gas to Europe but would also permit a further development of the dialogue between EU and the three countries of the Southern Caucasus, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia.

At the present stage it seems that Europe hasnt got the necessary tools to intervene in the crisis and the persistence of this will lead, already in the near future, to a withdrawal from both the Caucacus and Central Asia, leaving ground to the aggressive and competitive foreign policy of Russia and China.

***
Nicola Morfini, PhD Candidate University of St. Andrews (UK)
Junior researcher, Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI), Rome, Italy
Visiting fellow, Centre for Economic and Social Development (CESD), Baku, Azerbaijan
nicola.morfini@hotmail.com

Turkish Weekly Journal