Paul Goble
Staunton, June 29 – This month marks the half-way point in the term Baku, Moscow and Yerevan agreed in November 2018 as the five-year term for the presence of Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh. At present, “the likelihood that their mandate will be extended is decreasing,” according to Sergey Melkonyan of the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies.
According to the scholar, the presence of the Russian peacekeepers has blocked the possibility of ethnic cleansing but it has not “fulfilled one of its key functions” – keeping the Lachine corridor open for free passage by Armenians to and from Karabakh (profile.ru/abroad/ekvator-projden-budushhee-rossijskih-mirotvorcev-v-nagornom-karabahe-1348634/).
As a result, “the views of Armenia and Azerbaijan as to whether Russian peacekeepers should remain in the region after November 2025 have diverged,” Melkonyan says. “Yerevan has said it is ready to discuss an extension of their mandate for 15 years,” but “Azerbaijan has refused to discuss any extension.” Moscow for its part wants to “freeze” the entire issue.
If the current arrangement is not extended, the best outcome for Baku would be the withdrawal of the Russian forces, the scholar says; somewhat less good would be a bilateral agreement with Moscow on the continuing presence of those forces, an arrangement that would likely end the Russian presence in 2030.
According to Melkonyan, “the way out” of this impasse is for the current arrangement to be given more specific content so that all sides and the population of Karabakh will know exactly what the Russian forces will and won’t do in the future.
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