Icon: enlarge
Fighting for Nagorno-Karabakh: This shot is from the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense
Photo: AP
The foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan did not even sit down at one table in Moscow: Sohrab Mnazakanjan and Ceyhun Bayramov spoke separately to their Russian colleague Sergei Lavrov.
They came to Moscow again on Wednesday.
Once again it was about how the agreed ceasefire can be kept in the embattled Nagorno-Karabakh.
Lavrov had negotiated it in eleven hours on October 9, when Mnazakanjan and Bayramov were at the same table with him at least at some point.
However, the weapons were only dormant afterwards, for which both countries hold each other responsible.
A second attempt a few days later also failed.
The fighting in the South Caucasus has been going on for three and a half weeks now, bitter fights are going on for every meter in the mountain region, which under international law belongs to Azerbaijan but is in fact controlled by Armenia.
Icon: enlarge
Still at a table on October 9 in Moscow: Sergei Lavrov (center) and his colleagues from Azerbaijan and Armenia, Ceyhun Bayramov (left) and Sohrab Mnazakanjan
Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry Press / / ITAR-TASS / imago images / ITAR-TASS
It is the worst fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan since the end of the war in 1994. The government in the Armenian capital Yerevan has already reported more than 870 dead soldiers.
In Baku, Azerbaijan, the government does not provide any information about the casualties in the army, but speaks of dozens of civilian casualties and hundreds of wounded.
Both countries accuse each other of having rekindled the war.
"Moscow has seriously lost its authority"
For a long time, Russia was able to freeze the dangerous conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.
In 1994, shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, Moscow reached a ceasefire.
Even when new fighting broke out in April 2016, Russia reacted quickly: With the mediation of President Vladimir Putin, the two warring neighboring states agreed on a ceasefire after four days.
But now, four years later, it is no longer that easy.
Moscow still sees itself as the central mediator, but it is becoming increasingly clear that this time Russia will not be able to secure a new, permanent ceasefire on its own.
Moscow has lost its influence - and that is mainly due to Turkey.
In this war it is clearly taking sides with Azerbaijan and, according to SPIEGEL research, even supports Baku's fight with mercenaries from Syria and Libya.
"With Turkey's interference, Moscow has seriously lost its authority," says Russian military expert Alexander Golts.
The use of the mercenaries would also be tantamount to an insult to Russia: In Syria, the Russian leadership always emphasizes how successful the fight against the fighters known as "terrorists" is, says Golts, "and now these fighters of all people are on the border with Russia used ".
With the intervention of Turkey, Moscow can no longer maintain the relationship between the warring states of Armenia and Azerbaijan, which has been laboriously balanced for decades.
Russia has long played an ambivalent role: On the one hand, alongside the USA and France, it chairs the Minsk Group of the OSCE, which has been trying to achieve peace in Nagorno-Karabakh since the 1990s.
In fact, Washington and Paris largely withdrew from this role, leaving the mediation to Moscow.
On the other hand, Russia used its relations with the warring neighboring states to bind both to itself and to arm them:
Russia has
close ties
with
Armenia
.
Both belong to the "Collective Security Treaty Organization", a defense union.
Moscow operates a military base in Armenia, supplies weapons and gas on favorable terms, and supports the country with loans.
Azerbaijan
has
good neighbors
with Russia, and President Ilham Aliyev also has good personal relations with Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin.
Russia provided the Azerbaijani military with modern weapons.
Unlike Yerevan, Baku can pay more: Moscow delivered tanks, helicopters and air defense systems at market prices.
In Azerbaijan, however, there was growing frustration as Armenia created facts in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in recent years.
It built settlements around the region in the areas it occupied.
Yerevan sees these territories as an important protection zone.
However, the Minsk group had actually recommended that these should be ceded to Baku.
But there one felt more and more left alone with this demand - especially by Russia.
What options does Moscow have?
Moscow, in turn, is now confronted with Turkey not only in Syria and Libya, but also in the Caucasus.
Only that this time it is a conflict in what, from Putin's point of view, is an exclusively Russian sphere of influence.
That makes things tricky - quite apart from all the other crises that the Kremlin still has to deal with this year: In addition to the corona pandemic, there are above all the ongoing protests in Belarus and the deep crisis in relations with the EU after the Poison attack on Alexei Navalny.
"Russia would like to have the status quo back, but it is too late for that," says Moscow political analyst Arkadij Dubnow.
Azerbaijan has already recaptured territories.
Baku repeatedly reports the capture of settlements, information that often cannot be verified independently.
"What is preventing President Aliyev from real negotiations on a ceasefire is Turkey," the expert believes.
Because Ankara drives Azerbaijan in the background.
Moscow must now provide Aliyev arguments for "that war is not the right way in this conflict".
Moscow's options are not the best:
If
what Yerevan demands
is
on the Armenian side
, Azerbaijan will rely even more on Turkey's support than before.
The result would be a proxy war in the South Caucasus, in which Moscow cannot have any interest.
Armenia would probably orient itself further west.
It had already reported attacks on its territory - actually one reason Russia would have to intervene after the mutual defense union's stand-by agreement, but Moscow did not respond.
If Russia retreats to its
neutral role as mediator
and Azerbaijan succeeds in retaking occupied territories from Armenia by force, it will not be Moscow to thank Baku for this, but Ankara, which openly supports its struggle.
And Armenia would continue to turn away too.
So far Moscow has managed to keep Turkey out of the negotiations;
President Putin has already phoned his Turkish colleague Recep Tayyip Erdogan and French President Emmanuel Macron, but the Kremlin will do everything to ensure that Ankara does not have an equal role in these talks.
However, Putin has to offer Baku something for this, which would mean that Armenia would have to cede territories permanently.
Yerevan is therefore under great pressure and, like Baku, shows little willingness to find a diplomatic solution after the renewed talks in Moscow.
Talks in Washington
Armenia now wants to promote its position in Washington as well.
This is where the foreign ministers of the two conflict countries fly, of all places.
In Yerevan it is hoped that the powerful NATO country USA will exert influence on the alliance member Turkey.
But apart from appeals, the US has so far held back, which led to criticism from the Democrats of the Trump administration shortly before the presidential election.
Moscow supports the talks with Foreign Minister Mike Pompeo on Friday, there are only a few issues on which the positions of Russia and the US are similar, the Russian ambassador to the US stressed.
A ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh is such a case.
Icon: The mirror
Collaboration: Alexander Chernyshev
