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The incident that happened on Karabakh-Azerbaijan contact line on June 18 – June 19 overnight distracted attention of NKR, Armenian and Azerbaijani societies as well as international community from Serzh Sargsyan-Dmitry Medvedev- Ilham Aliyev meeting held in Saint Petersburg the day before and, most importantly, from the meeting results. While, it seems there is no lack for official and unofficial information to draw certain conclusions. Anticipating the events we should say that the provocation on the contact line, in essence, pursued the very purpose – to distract attention of Nagorno Karabakh settlement sides and their societies from Petersburg meeting. We are going to speak about all events in turn.

Firstly we will speak about the events preceding Saint Petersburg meeting. After Presidents’ last meeting held on January 25 in Sochi Azerbaijani propaganda created the impression of some alleged exactness in the negotiation process, thus everybody was waiting for political decisions. Azerbaijani propaganda was stimulated by the short pause in the negotiation process, to all appearances, conditioned by the activization of Armenia-Turkey normalization process as well as Armenia’s approach of exact separation of Armenia-Turkey rapprochement and Nagorno Karabakh process.

So, in late April, the Nagorno Karabakh settlement process gradually became more active, with passions over Armenian-Turkish normalization calming down. OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs met with Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan on April 12 in Brussels, what is rated as an important event at that stage.

Less than a month later, on June 4, the co-chairs met with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov in Venice.
OSCE press office issued co-chairs’ statement on the meetings repeating the same thought:

“During the meeting, the sides discussed issues related to the current stage of Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement negotiations.”

The statement conveyed nothing, meanwhile it was important. At that time it was already clear that there is no exactness in the settlement process, the sides work at working proposals at foreign ministerial level, and the proposals when being completed will be submitted to the Presidents.

However, in spite of it, from April through June the Azerbaijani side – starting the President up to subject “political scientists,” was repeating that they do not see a necessity of Presidents’ meeting at the current stage. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev made a similar statement even when he already knew he was meeting Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan on July 17.

It is inappropriate to comment upon these manifestations of public lie and its motivations. It is Azerbaijanis who need these explanations, so let them demand the explanations. For us, it is important that Ilham Aliyev, with his attendance of Saint Petersburg meeting, in fact, not only sees a necessity of negotiations with the Armenian side, but also realizes that the failure of the process can have serious consequences for him and his country.

Let us speak about Petersburg meeting. There are a number of important nuances concerning the meeting. The first is, certainly, the fact that Ilham Aliyev arrived in Saint Petersburg “alone,” without Azerbaijani reporters. It is an important fact since the head of our neighboring country always arrived at such meetings accompanied by a representative group of reporters. Initially it could be explained by the version that Ilham Aliyev did not wish to widely cover an event in his country, impossibility of which he repeated the other day.

However, when Azerbaijani President left Petersburg ahead of the schedule, it became clear that the cause of Aliyev’s attending the meeting without correspondents was not only the danger of exposure of his telling a lie. In essence, the Azerbaijani side in advance knew the subject of conversation in Saint Petersburg and rated it expedient to say nothing about it at all.

It is confirmed not only by correspondents’ non-appearance at the meeting but also the fact that the Azerbaijani side has not given any official commentary on the meeting so far, with local media publishing news on the fact of meeting only.

So, what could make the Azerbaijanis get so nervous and keep silent? We can make considerations over the issue with official information as a basis only.

Thus, a few minutes after Sargsyan-Medvedev-Aliyev meeting Russian President’s press office released a report that read:

“Armenian and Azerbaijani Presidents Serzh Sargsyan and Ilham Aliyev at the meeting with their Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev confirmed their readiness to continue the negotiations over the Nagorno Karabakh problem on the basis of Madrid principles. The sides got nearer in their positions over a number of disputable issues in the text of the basic principles. The Armenian and Azerbaijani Presidents also confirmed their readiness to continue the dialogue aiming at completing the work at the document carried out with the mediation of OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing countries – Russia, United States and France.

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan gave official commentary straight after the meeting saying:

“In the recent period, the negotiations have been going on with Russian Foreign Minister’s mediation, at foreign ministerial level. And today’s negotiations fixed what has been achieved by the sides in those negotiations for the present. An agreement was reached at the meeting to continue the negotiations on that basis. The Presidents charged the Foreign Ministers to keep on their contacts. The process is going on. We can say that today’s meeting was constructive and rather useful. It was an important point of departure in the Nagorno Karabakh settlement process.”

OSCE Minsk Group Russian Co-chair Igor Popov made the next important statement in his interview to Armenian media:

“There is no updated variant of settlement proposals as such, that is, we constantly work, some elements are acceptable, some not, we work at it at present, and a mutually acceptable variant should be found. To say acceptable or not is a very simple question while the problem is much more complicated indeed. The most important thing is that there is a group of settlement principles but there is no general idea about its duration and algorithm of carrying out these principles, therefore we, OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs work to introduce some variants. Certainly, there are variants over which the Armenian side does not agree to the Azerbaijani one, there are also variants with the opposite situation. Certainly, there are provisions, to which both sides agree. Our goal is to bring the approaches nearer to the maximum extent to achieve signing of the document. How long the process will last – I cannot say.”

The comparison of these three statements indicates that:

a. there has been no final and specified document on the negotiation table, there are only so-called Madrid principles introduced by the co-chairs in 2007. It is confirmed by Igor Popov’s statement, by Russian President’s press office report. Moreover, after a long resistance, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov also publicly confessed it in his commentaries given after meeting the co-chairs on June 4.

b. the mediators introducing various working proposals from time to time, try to bring nearer the positions and approaches of the sides. Igor Popov exactly confirmed that fact. Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan has repeatedly declared it lately and the Azerbaijani side has never refuted it.

c. before the last meeting of the Presidents the Russian side in coordination with the other co-chairs introduced a new package of proposals to the sides, they were discussed at foreign ministers level and the results were submitted to the Presidents. Edward Nalbandyan declared it literally. Official Baku as well as the Russian side (as author of proposals) neither refuted Armenian Foreign Minister’s information nor cast a doubt on it.

d. at the Petersburg meeting of Presidents, the Foreign Ministers’ activities results were discussed, an agreement was reached to continue the negotiations on the basis of Russian side’s proposals. This is mentioned in Edward Nalbandyan’s statement as well as in Russian President’s press office report.

It comes that a new round of settlement process started at Saint Petersburg meeting that Edward Nalbandyan classed as “an important point of departure in the negotiation process,” with Russian side’s new proposals taken as a basis. They have been already given the name of “Petersburg proposals” by experts.

It is unknown yet what these new proposals imply. However, under lack of official information, some suppositions can be made, mostly on the basis of sides’ actions after the meeting.

We think the key is Ilham Aliyev’s sudden departure from Saint Petersburg and the fact of his non-attendance of the Economic Forum.

Various opinions were voiced in this connection. A version was even voiced that Ilham Aliyev left Russia to avoid giving explanations on the incident that happened near the village of Chaylu. We do not exclude this possibility, yet we think that it was not the real reason. After all, Ilham Aliyev could charge to carry out the diversion in a day or two, on June 19 or 20, thus avoiding troubles. We think Ilham Aliyev’s hasty decision was affected by another event occurring after Presidents’ tripartite meeting.

The point is that OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs were also in Saint Petersburg during the Presidents’ meeting. They did not even conceal that they knew what was spoken about at the Presidents’ meeting and had arrived in Russia to get a commission or permission (“approval”) to keep on working on settlement after the meeting. That was to take place straight after the tripartite meeting, at the meetings between Armenian and Azerbaijani Presidents and co-chairs. To put it short, it was planned that the sides were to personally introduce to co-chairs the agreements reached at the meetings and to charge the Foreign Ministers to keep on their contacts.

Ilham Aliyev left Saint Petersburg immediately after the meeting with the co-chairs. Why? To all appearances, a few hours after his meeting with the Armenian and Russian Presidents the Azerbaijani President changed his mind and violating the agreements reached at the meeting refused to give respective instructions to his Foreign Minister at the meeting with the co-chairs. And to avoid giving explanations the next day when he was meeting Dmitry Medvedev and Serzh Sargsyan face-to-face, he just left Saint Petersburg.

The co-chairs are planning a regional visit soon. And that visit results will make it clear whether Ilham Aliyev’s escape reaches Baku or farther.