Tuesday, June 21 2016 04:01

 The meeting of Vladimir Putin with Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan in Saint Petersburg was not a sensation, mk.ru writes. No one anticipated any sensation at all. The Nagorno Karabakh is among the so-called "irresolvable conflicts" at least because the conflicting sides lack common ground, like Palestinians and Israelis, but it is much closer to Russia's borders.  In their joint statement after the talks in St. Petersburg, the three presidents just confirmed the arrangements made in Vienna on May 16 to stabilize the situation in the region.  

"It was a very constructive, trust-based and open talk. It showed that there are all the reasons to intensify the talks," Sergey Lavrov, Foreign Minister of Russia, told journalists on the heels on the meeting.  He said to normalize the situation on the Line of Contact, the conflicting sides agreed to increase the number of the OSCE observers, though the issue was not specified in the joint statement. At present, 6 persons are observing the ceasefire. Lavrov said Russia is not going to interfere into that process. "The OSCE Secretariat is engaged in preventing and inquiring into the incidents," he said. By the way, the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs (besides Russia, it comprises U.S. and France) who are authorized to engage in the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict were invited at the final part of the trilateral meeting.  Earlier, OSCE that planned Aliyev-Sargsyan meeting in Paris for late June was offended that the Kremlin seized the initiative and seeks to force its rules of the game upon Europe. Lavrov said, "The OSCE Secretariat is surveying the situation seeking to suggest something to the sides." However, taking advantage of its special relations with Armenia and Azerbaijan, Russia reserves the right to continue the talks on Karabakh in the trilateral format.

It remains a secret if the so-called "Lavrov's plan" containing fundamentally new approaches to the Karabakh settlement was discussed in Saint Petersburg or not. The minister earlier said that there was no "Plan B." Russia as all the parties concerned stems from the principle "nothing is agreed upon, until everything is agreed upon," Lavrov said earlier. Nothing has inherently changed since 2008, when Barack Obama. Dmitry Medvedev and Nicolas Sarkozy as mediators approved 3 principles and 6 points of the "Plan A." 
The three principles were as follows: -non-use of force and threats to use force; right for self-determination;  territorial integrity. 
The six elements were: 

1.    The final status of Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) should be determined by means of NK population's will expression, the results of which will have international legal effect; 
2.    Before determination of the final status of NK, there will be an interim status, recognized by the international community; 
3.    Land communication should be provided between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh; 
4.    Return of all refugees and displaced people after provision of international guarantees of security; 
5.    Provision of international guarantees of security, including deployment of international peacekeepers; 
6.    Return of territories. 

The talks around that plan that Baku and Yerevan did not oppose generally have continued for many years already. However, the devil is in the detail. Like in the case with the Minsk Agreements on Donbass, it is not clear what should be the sequence of the above steps and who is more responsible. In addition, Yerevan has learned lessons from Moscow's behavior and demands involving Karabakh into the talks insisting that arrangements have little chances for success unless the Karabakh side is involved in them.