There is a serious risk that long-range ground-to-ground missiles would be used and casualties, particularly civilian, be much higher in the effort to gain a decisive ground advantage. In the wake of the April fighting, the publics in Armenia and Azerbaijan are more ready for military solutions than at any time in 25 years. Russia sees itself as the regional arbiter which is bound to intervene, not least because of its tight treaty relations with Armenia.
“I told previously that Azerbaijan will attempt to make use of any instability in the region, which it attempted to do in April. I’m also of the conviction that activities of Azerbaijan with Turkey aren’t particularly agreed, as Turkey attempts to keep some distance from the conflict, and Azerbaijan strives to involve Turkey. Simply any instability is in favor of Azerbaijan. I think, for a short-term future rehabilitation of Russia-Turkey relations will be positively reflected on NK conflict, however, it won’t completely eliminate the threat for NK conflict outbreak, as Azerbaijan intends to reach its imagined NK conflict settlement through exerting pressure.”
“During the session serious attention was attached to international security, with which deal CSTO member countries and on which depends their stability, and one of those issues is NK conflict as well. Thus, during the session the conflict was discussed and respective statement was adopted both on NK conflict and Syrian crisis,” Bordyuzha said.
“As I already mentioned, rather serious efforts are exerted, in particular, by the MG Co-Chairs. This is not the time of public diplomacy, and I don’t tend to comment on one of the public statements. Let the diplomacy work,” he said.
Neil Macfarlane, professor of International Relations at Oxford University, specialist on Russia and the South Caucasus, PhD in political science, positively assessed the process by the MG towards making presidential meeting frequent, launched after the April war. In his words, currently the Russian side seemingly puts forward its separate plans in Nagorno-Karabakh, attempting to move towards the direction of cooperation with the USA and France, with the perspective of settling wider relations with the West.
Germany as an OSCE chairing country “seeks to settle the Nagorno Karabakh conflict,” Frank-Walter Steinmeier, German Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs, said to journalists today in Tbilisi.
“We highly appreciate the efforts of all the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries aimed at organizing meetings at the highest level. However, at least it is improper, when not France – the inviting side, but one of the invitees voices the French proposal which is still under consideration.”
Jafarov detailed that it refers Akna (Aghdam), Varanda (Fizuli) and Mekhakavan (Jabrail) regions. Jafarov considers that Azerbaijan is ready to become a member of Eurasian Economic Union for the return of those territories and by that enter into the “game.”
“Germany intends to record some result by the end of its presidency and currently all OSCE powers are focused on extinguishing NK conflict fire, as the conflict is rather serious, it resumed in April, and there is a threat, that it may repeat again. In Germany great importance is attached to weakening of tension on NK conflict zone. During conferences, participants of which is Steinmeier as well as his diplomats, the conflict is being observed as the most sharpened conflict in Europe, thus Steinmeier’s efforts are quite understandable and the fact, that it should be on hot points attempting to find ways for agreement.”
“Today the meeting of the president of Artsakh and Steinmeier was held in Yerevan and different issues have been discussed towards NK conflict settlement. Surely, main stress was on developing of mechanisms, maintenance of peace. Time will show whether it’ll succeed or not, however, there is no any other variant—conflict settlement process should centralize on development and installation of these very mechanisms. It’ll be impossible to settle the conflict without it. “
