Eurasianet: Is Baku trying to ‘deceive’ Russia? Why is Azerbaijan spreading rumors about withdrawing a Russian military base from Armenia?
A new knot is being added to the already tangled efforts of getting an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty finalized, Eurasianet writes.
As noted, both sides have acknowledged that the treaty text is ready for signing, but an authoritative version has so far not been published. Azerbaijan has set several preconditions it says must be fulfilled before a signing ceremony can take place. Baku’s chief concern is a need for Armenia to amend its constitution to unequivocally recognize Azerbaijan’s sovereignty over the long-contested Nagorno-Karabakh territory.
On May 17, state-connected Azerbaijani media outlets floated a potential bombshell revelation – that one of the treaty’s provisions bars foreign (i.e. Russian) troops from being based on the territory of either state. That message was repeated by Hikmet Hajiyev, a presidential foreign policy adviser, in comments first published by the Iranian news agency Tasnim.
“If accurate, a ratified treaty would seem to spell the end of the Russian 102nd military base outside the Armenian city of Gyumri. The current lease agreement runs until 2044,” Eurasianet writes.
Understandably, the reported presence of an expulsion clause in the treaty received lots of attention in Moscow, with Russian media outlets amplifying Armenian denials.
The timing of Azerbaijan’s purported revelation coincides with another spike in tension between Baku and the Kremlin. The latest burst of mutual rancor occurred after Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliyev snubbed his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin by deciding to skip Victory Day celebrations on May 9 inMoscow. The festering hostility is rooted in Russia’s refusal to take responsibility for the accidental shoot-down of an Azerbaijani civilian airliner last December in the skies over the Russian province of Chechnya. The supposed treaty-provision announcement, then, could be just another way for Baku to tweak Russia, the website writes.
As noted, the Azerbaijani move also potentially complicates Yerevan’s efforts to improve ties with Russia. Over the past 18 months, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s government has moved to diversify the country’s geopolitical options by strengthening relations with the United States and European Union, vexing Russia, Yerevan’s traditional ally, in the process. Of late, however, Pashinyan has sought to mend fences with Moscow, seemingly out of a desire to augment Armenia’s political leverage to get Azerbaijan to sign the peace treaty.
The article states that the claimed basing provision in the draft peace treaty could raise concerns in Moscow about a possible Armenian double-cross. Russia is eager to maintain a strong security presence in the South Caucasus that the Kremlin can potentially use as a lever of political influence. Azerbaijan lately has sent multiple signals that it wants to diminish Russia’s strategic presence in the region.
