Paul Goble<\/p>\n
Vienna, November 3 \u2013 The big winner at the summit among the presidents of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan yesterday may be a country was not there: Iran, whose return to an active role in the Caucasus, something the US opposes and the Minsk Group was organized to prevent, now appears to enjoy the active support of both Moscow and Yerevan.
\nYesterday, following their meeting in Moscow, Presidents Dmitry Medvedev, Serzh Sarksyan, and Ilham Aliyev signed a joint declaration on their commitment to continuing to pursue \u201ca peaceful regulation\u201d of the Karabakh conflict by means of talks, including within the framework of the Minsk Group (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru\/newstext\/news\/id\/1232473.html).
\nWhile Russian commentators celebrated this document not only as a major contribution to the peace in the Caucasus and a confirmation of Russia\u2019s newly expanded role there, in fact, neither that declaration nor the meetings of the foreign ministers on Friday or their joint session with the Minsk Group on Saturday broke much if any new ground.
\nBut a statement by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday suggests that the diplomatic landscape in the Caucasus may be changing quickly, albeit in ways that may not lead to any resolution of the conflicts between Armenia and Azerbaijan or between Georgia and the Russian Federation.
\nLavrov said that Iran had expressed an interest in creating a security zone in the Caucasus, a step that would appear to challenge both the Minsk Group which was created to exclude Iran from having a role in the region and Turkey which has proposed creating a Platform of Security and Stability in the Caucasus (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru\/newstext\/news\/id\/1232455.html).
\nThe Russian foreign minister said that he had spoken with Iranian officials about their desire to be included \u201cin discussions\u201d about the Caucasus, a move that appears to be the product of both Moscow\u2019s own desire to promote a north-south axis through the Caucasus and two developments earlier this fall.
\nOn the one hand, Yerevan indicated that it was not prepared to talk about Turkey\u2019s proposal for security unless Iran was involved (kavkaz-uzel.ru\/newstext\/news\/id\/1229327.html). And on the other, Tehran offered itself as an intermediary for possible talks between Moscow and Tbilisi (kavkaz-uzel.ru\/newstext\/news\/id\/1089720.html).
\nThe Russian foreign minister said that Moscow has still not received any concrete proposals from Tehran in this regard, but earlier last week, the Iranian news agency IRNA quoted an Iranian deputy foreign minister to the effect that Tehran is currently \u201ccompleting\u201d work on them.
\nIt is, of course, entirely possible that Iran\u2019s proposals, even if they do find support in Moscow and Yerevan, will go no further than Turkey\u2019s have in resolving some of the neuralgic disputes of the South Caucasus. But just like the Moscow meeting itself, Iran\u2019s new involvement represents a kind of tectonic shift there.
\nSince the end of the Soviet Union, the United States has taken the lead in trying to keep Iran from having any role in the region. That is of course why Washington promoted the creation of the Minsk Group, a product of the only international organization in which all the regional players were members except Iran.
\nBut that group has not succeeded in squaring the circle on Karabakh, a dispute in which the positions of the two sides are not really any closer than they were a decade or more ago. And consequently, those immediately involved have become increasingly frustrated and are willing to explore different venues and negotiating partners.
\nSuch frustrations have given an opening to Iran. And as Lavrov\u2019s remarks in Moscow on Friday indicate, Tehran is ready and willing to get involved, a development that the Russian government gives every indication of welcoming whatever its Minsk Group and American \u201cpartners\u201d may think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Paul Goble Vienna, November 3 \u2013 The big winner at the summit among the presidents of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan yesterday may be a country was not there: Iran, whose return to an active role in the Caucasus, something the US opposes and the Minsk Group was organized to prevent, now appears to enjoy the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":783838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,41,62,42,208],"tags":[204],"class_list":["post-6674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-armenia","category-azerbaijan","category-iran_","category-russia","category-southerncaucasus","tag-nagorno-karabakh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}