While no disappointment is expressed at the official level in Yerevan and Baku over U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s South Caucasus tour and her position on the Karabakh settlement, such disappointment is vented in both countries at the level of experts.

Particular disappointment in Yerevan has been caused by the circumstance that the senior U.S. official in fact has “equalized” both parties to the Karabakh conflict. The Armenian side had expected the U.S. secretary of state to condemn Azerbaijan for the incident at the Karabakh-Azerbaijani border on June 18 in which four Armenian soldiers were killed as well as Azerbaijan’s increased war rhetoric on the whole. But Clinton only urged both sides to respect the ceasefire regime.


Expert of the Armenian Center for National and International Studies Manvel Sargsyan thinks that the U.S. is trying not to show an asymmetric approach. “The U.S. does not come up with concrete proposals, insisting that the parties themselves should find an agreement between themselves,” said the expert. He also stressed that “so far no one has repealed Section 907.” (Section 907 of the United States Freedom Support Act was passed by Congress on Aug. 11, 1992. Congress condemns the aggression of Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh and bans any kind of direct United States aid to the Azerbaijani government.)

In Baku they believe that Clinton should have called Armenia an occupier. “This is a mentor attempt of the representative of a superpower to balance the two conflicting parties, without naming either the aggressor or the victim of this aggression,” said Azeri political analyst Fikret Sadykhov.

Another analyst, former advisor to Azerbaijani President Vafa Guluzade believes that the United States had agreed with the Russians “on the withdrawal of Armenian troops from the districts surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh.” However, Nagorno-Karabakh itself will remain under Armenian control. The Armenian side, according to Guluzade, insists on a temporary status for Nagorno-Karabakh. “Azerbaijan will never agree to provide a status for Nagorno-Karabakh besides the status of autonomy within its borders,” stressed Guluzade. “If the territory is occupied, then on the basis of the UN Charter a state has the right to use military force to liberate these areas,” added Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov.

Ankara hopes for positive developments in the South Caucasus region until the end of this summer, said Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who commented on the visit of U.S. Secretary of State Clinton to Baku and Yerevan.

Will there be a breakthrough in the Karabakh settlement? Clinton argues there is progress in the perception by the parties of the mediators’ proposals. But the parties’ positions appear to be as irreconcilable as at the beginning of the conflict: Azerbaijan does not want to admit that it has lost Karabakh, whereas the Armenian side says Karabakh’s needs a final status.

The OSCE Minsk Group cochairmen Igor Popov (Russia), Bernard Fassier (France) and Robert Bradtke (USA) issued a joint statement from Vienna, Austria, on July 5 in which they noted “the progress that has been made and the recognition by both sides that the elements articulated by their three [U.S., French and Russian] Presidents in L’Aquila and repeated in their June 26, 2010 statement must be the basis of a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.” The cochairmen said they “urged the parties, in a spirit of constructive compromise, to take the next step and move towards completing work on the Basic Principles to enable the drafting of a peace agreement to begin.”

The proposals are based upon the principles of non-use of force or the threat of force, the right of peoples to self-determination and territorial integrity. But will the parties respond to the call?