(AFP) – Oct 29, 2008

MOSCOW (AFP) — The Kremlin said on Wednesday that it will host the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan for talks on the disputed Nagorny Karabakh region, playing peacemaker in the Caucasus after its war with Georgia.

"On November 2, 2008, in Moscow... a meeting will take place between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian... on the regulation of the Nagorny Karabakh conflict," a Kremlin statement said.

Armenia and Azerbaijan confirmed that the meeting would be held, but presidential officials in both countries declined to comment further. The Kremlin said Russian President Dmitry Medvedev would host the meeting.

Medvedev visited Armenia last week in a fresh push to end the long-simmering conflict over Nagorny Karabakh, an enclave of Azerbaijan with a largely ethnic Armenian population that broke free of Baku's control in the early 1990s.

Sarkisian said at the meeting that he was ready for talks with Baku on the basis of principles worked out at negotiations in Madrid last year, meaning that the people of Nagorny Karabakh gain the right to self-determination.

Analysts say Moscow is keen to boost its influence in the South Caucasus after Russia's brief war with US-allied Georgia in August raised tensions throughout the region.

The August war, which began when Georgia attacked its own breakaway enclave of South Ossetia, raised fears of similar violence in Nagorny Karabakh.

"Russia must repair its image in the Caucasus," said Alexei Malashenko, a political analyst with the Moscow Carnegie Centre. "The important thing for Russia is that it is seen to take the initiative."

But Malashenko said a quick resolution of the conflict would require concessions "at Armenia's cost" -- an unlikely scenario considering that Yerevan is Moscow's "strategic partner" in the Caucasus.

Azerbaijani political analyst Vafa Guluzade predicted that the Moscow meeting would yield little result, as Baku had nothing to gain.

"Russia is looking to restore its influence in Azerbaijan," he said. "That's why negotiations under a format of Azerbaijan-Russia-Armenia will bring nothing good."

But analysts said that if Moscow decided to push Armenia toward compromise, Russia could strengthen its position in the Caucasus.

Moscow is vying for influence with Washington in Azerbaijan, a key energy exporter that ships oil and gas through Western-backed pipelines through Georgia and Turkey, bypassing Russia.

"Russia is looking to strengthen its influence in the Caucasus... and if it manages to convince Armenia to compromise on Karabakh, Azerbaijan could in exchange export its oil and gas via Russian territory to Europe," Armenian political analyst Stepan Grigorian said.

Armenia and Azerbaijan remain in a tense stand-off over Karabakh, which ethnic Armenian forces seized in the early 1990s in a war that killed nearly 30,000 people and forced another million on both sides to flee their homes.

A ceasefire was signed between the two former Soviet republics in 1994 but the dispute remains unresolved after years of negotiations, and shootings between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in the region are common.

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