Moscow's attitude towards renewed hostilities between Azerbaijan and Armenia...

In your opinion, did the Russian President’s latest visit to Turkey and Turkish PM’s recent visit to Azerbaijan revive the resolution of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to a certain extent?

Numerous bilateral and trilateral initiatives on resolution of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict have been advanced so far. None of them have led to real resolution of the conflict. Similarly, the above said visits have caused no shifts in the conflict resolution. There is simply working process underway.  

In your opinion, has Russia changed its stance in terms of understanding causes and consequences of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict?

If you talk about general trends, Russian political elite perceives the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia as a kind of reality. Few people in the Russian establishment are interested in what are the real causes and consequences of this conflict.

They are more interested in what consequences resumed military action between Azerbaijan and Armenia will have and whether it will affect Russia since the hostilities will take place not far from the southern borders of Russia which can cause many problems for the country. Therefore, “frozen” state of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is more advantageous for the Russian political elite.

Then why Armenia is dissatisfied with the rapid warming in the Russian-Turkish relations?

I find it difficult to say why Armenia is so indignant over overall development of Russian-Turkish relations. It can be assumed there is a reasonable cause. But equally, we can assume that there is no reason for Armenia’s concern and all its fears over the current warming in the Russian-Turkish relations are groundless. In general, speaking about the Azerbaijani-Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, it should be noted that Armenia must either admit the annexation of Azerbaijan’s territories or it should liberate them.

There are no prerequisites for the world community to accept the fact of annexation of Azerbaijan’s territories by Armenia. Similarly, Armenia has no ability to absorb the occupied Azerbaijani territories. Therefore, it is possible that the Armenian political establishment will finally understand that Azerbaijan’s occupied lands must be liberated. Naturally, an understanding of this fact in Armenia is transformed into a search of what could be bargained in the case of de-occupation of Azerbaijan’s territories.

It is believed that Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan can decide to de-occupy Azerbaijan’s territories if only he is given guarantees by superpowers that he will not be ousted.

Such a version, like many other versions, has a right to exist. But in my opinion, no leader of any state in the world can argue with certainty that disgruntled people will never stage a revolt in his country. Moreover, the world history has seen no cases when conflict resolution depended on a single person, head of the country involved in this conflict. But there are many examples of how conflicts are solved if there is a consensus of all parties involved in its settlement. Such a consensus does not exist in case of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.


/Day.Az/