Armenia and Azerbaijan are Close to Large-Scale Resumption of the Conflict as ever: Sergey Markedonov
“Military-political balance between Yerevan and Baku won’t allow any party to reach overwhelming privilege and will restrain the conflict,” Sergey Markedonov, Director of the Department for Problems of Ethnic Relations at the Institute for Political and Military Analysis in Moscow, PhD in Historical Sciences, columnist, politician, expert of Russian Council on Foreign Affairs, told 168.am today, touching upon the political context of unleashed military actions by Azerbaijan.
He stated that this has been the biggest wave since May 1994. Markedonov mentioned that yet in June 2010, when a rather serious force progress was recorded, he wrote that step by step frequency of incidents might lead to large-scale resumption of the conflict. Today, in his conviction, the parties are close to it as ever.
Russian authoritative analyst provided the fourth part of his report on “International threats”, which he wrote in December 2015. Yet last year he recorded that parties enter 2016, without any hint on compromising. He also mentioned that sharpening of NK tension is bothering both for Russia and the West. “By the possibility of deploying international peace-keeping forces, Iran is also cautious about “unfreezing” of the conflict, which states on the necessity of conflict settlement, without engagement of extra-regional actors in it.
Meanwhile Russia-Turkey confrontation, on account of Azerbaijan-Turkey and Armenia-Russia strategic relations, raises war threat and exit of NK conflict from regional borders. Moreover, Yerevan and Baku, following discordances of Moscow and Washington, try Minsk group, and even CSTO, regarding quick and unified response on incidents,” he said.
According to Markedonov, breaking of a fragile status quo in that “hot line” is going to have negative implications for Russia, as first and foremost, it’ll question perspective for Eurasian integration projects, on account of absence of a consensus of member countries in providing military-political support to Armenia, secondly, it’ll sharply contradict interests of Moscow and Baku, up to possibility of repeating “Georgian scenario,” and thirdly, weakening of Russian positions will inevitably raise the issue of “internationalization” of peaceful settlement process, in case of which Russia’s impact will noticeably decrease.
Upon Markedonov’s anticipations, there are two preconditions for negative developments. First of them, in his words, is deepening of Russia-Turkey confrontation and unleashed escalation regarding this issue. “This confrontation with Moscow may instigate Ankara to increase its military support provided to Azerbaijan not only against unrecognized Nagorno Karabakh, but for the purpose of increasing pressure over Armenia. However, military-political balance between Yerevan and Baku won’t allow reaching overwhelming privilege and will restrain the confrontation,” concluded Markedonov in his report.
By Araks Martirosyan
