Matthew Bryza criticizes Obama Administration for negligence to Karabakh problem

Matthew Bryza criticizes Obama Administration for negligence to Karabakh problem
# 12 April 2016 11:45 (UTC +04:00)

Baku – APA. The Washington Post has published an article by Matthew Bryza, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council, was US mediator of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict from 2006 to 2009 and US ambassador to Azerbaijan from 2010 to 2011.

In his article, Matthew Bryza, said he is therefore struck by the lack of cooperation on Nagorno-Karabakh between Washington and Moscow in recent days.

Bryza recalled that he served as the US co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group from 2006 to 2009. “My Russian counterpart, Yuri Merzlyakov, was always constructive, as were his superiors: Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov hosted the co-chairs for hours of brainstorming, while then-President Dmitry Medvedev helped push what was close to a breakthrough in 2009. Though Washington and Moscow locked horns on Russia’s invasion of Georgia in August 2008, our cooperation on Nagorno-Karabakh was as intense as our enmity regarding Georgia. . Rather than uniting for concerted action in the spirit of the Minsk Group, Putin has been going it alone. Perhaps he seeks to undercut any credit Vice President Biden might have garnered for invigorating the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process when he met separately with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian President Serge Sarkisian the day before the flare-up in violence. Or perhaps Putin was angered that Sarkisian and Aliyev proceeded with their White House meeting on the margins of President Obama’s nuclear summit at the end of March, which the Russian president boycotted,” he said.

The former ambassador noted that indeed, the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan had little interest in these unprecedented military clashes occurring just as they were trying to persuade the White House to engage in the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process.

“In any case, Putin is exploiting the situation through intensive diplomacy that Obama shows no interest in matching. The White House has failed even to issue an official statement. Meanwhile, the State Department’s reaction has been muted, consisting of a news statement by Secretary of State John Kerry that does not reflect the unprecedented nature of current circumstances, plus Kerry’s routine phone discussions with Lavrov. Putin, by contrast, has consulted repeatedly with Aliyev and Sarkisian, while Russia’s foreign and defense ministers are actively engaging their counterparts in Yerevan and Baku. As a result, a April 5 cease-fire was brokered by Russia’s military chief with his Azerbaijani and Armenian counterparts, but without direct participation by the Minsk Group co-chairs,” he added.

Through these actions, Putin has positioned Russia to gain in two key ways, according to Bryza.

“First, Russia is now repairing its international reputation following its debacle in Ukraine. Second, the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan are left with the impression that Russia alone calls the shots in the South Caucasus,” he said.

The overstretched Obama White House may view Putin’s gains as a price worth paying to quell the current violence and keep an additional crisis off its plate, the former US co-chair said.

“Such benign neglect, however, creates opportunities for Kremlin exploitation in a region that connects Turkey, Russia, Iran, Central Asia and Caspian energy supplies. Putin has followed up the Moscow-brokered cease-fire by pressing Azerbaijan to join the Eurasian Economic Union and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, his counterweights to the European Union and NATO. Moscow has also announced that Russian internal passports can now be used for Russian citizens traveling to Armenia, effectively erasing any border between the two countries. And now Iran, whose previous efforts to insert itself into Nagorno-Karabakh mediation were thwarted, is maneuvering with Russia to form a triangle of cooperation with Azerbaijan and fill the strategic vacuum left by the United States. As Putin pulls Azerbaijan and Armenia away from the West in these ways, he is laying the foundation for future crises, while Washington watches,” he concluded.

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