Azernews.Az

Senior Russian officials are paying a visit to Azerbaijan, in a bid to resolve outstanding differences that emerged in the past months.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigori Karasin and Parliament Speaker Boris Gryzlov's visit comes after the halt in the broadcasts of Russia's state-run TV channel RTR in Azerbaijan and at a time Baku and Moscow are still to agree a wide range of issues including migration, transportation and borders.
In April, Azerbaijani customs officers detained a cargo of Russian equipment on its way to Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant, saying the needed permit had not been supplied by Moscow. The consignment was released several weeks thereafter.
The Russian embassy in Baku has issued a statement saying deputy minister Karasin would chiefly table border-related issues with Azeri officials. Karasin, who heads his country's taskforce in charge of restoring the Samur bridge, is expected to visit the area as well.
The issue was previously raised by lawmakers. Speaker Gryzlov said at a meeting in the Azeri parliament on Tuesday that talks on border delimitation, in particular, the use of the Samur link, "should have long been completed and it might be even necessary to replace those holding negotiations due to this delay".
Russian officials have also pointed to the importance of implementing the North-South transport corridor project. Gryzlov believes that an international consortium should be set up to construct a Moscow-Tehran railway that would pass through Baku.
Local analysts link these proposals to Russia's aspiration to simplify the transit of its cargo to Iran and elsewhere. They also said Moscow deems last month's detention of the Bushehr consignment not as a technical problem but as a political issue, and is now trying to put forward a specific project to Baku.
The former Azerbaijani ambassador in Moscow Hikmet Hajizada said Azerbaijan should issue a concrete response to Russian officials in this regard.
"Delegates come from Russia on this or other levels once a month or so. Moscow has devised a specific policy on Azerbaijan. That policy aims to return the country to its sphere of influence, while blocking others' access to it. This being said, Baku should turn to the Euro-Atlantic area more intensely."
Political analyst Rasim Musabayov said the borders and cargo transportation issues "were outside the authority of such politicians as Gryzlov and Karasin", therefore, no final decision should be expected from the Azerbaijani government as a result of their visit. At the same time, he said the intensification of talks between Baku and Moscow was not by mere chance.
"The President's Office Chief-of-Staff Ramiz Mehdiyev is expected to pay a visit to Moscow. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev is further scheduled to arrive in Azerbaijan on his next visit within CIS after visiting Kazakhstan. All this shows that certain pragmatic changes are taking place in Azeri-Russian relations. But Russia's policy both in the entire CIS and the South Caucasus is deadlocked in some sense," the analyst said.
Musabayov said that if Russia indeed wants to regain its influence in Azerbaijan, it should revisit its policy on the Armenia-Azerbaijan Upper (Nagorno) Garabagh conflict. The issue is high on the agenda during Russian officials' meetings under way in Baku. Speaker Gryzlov has said his country would step up its mediating mission, although he made it clear that Moscow had no intention to put pressure on the conflicting sides.
Azerbaijani and Armenian Presidents Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sarkisian will hold the next round of talks on the Garabagh settlement with Russia's mediation in St. Petersburg June 6-8.