ArmInfo.Today, Armenia and Artsakh have all the mechanisms for implementing a strategy capable of getting Azerbaijan cornered. Director of the Armenian Center for Strategic and National Studies Manvel Sargsyan expressed this opinion to ArmInfo.
"Throughout the settlement process, our main problem was the lack of not only rational thinking, but even rational ideas about the causes, the essence and, accordingly, the prospects for the Karabakh conflict. In the meantime, how can we get rid of these misconceptions and approaches, only soberly assessing the situation. Azerbaijan does not want to make peace with us today and does not want tomorrow. He will do it only forcedly, as happened in 1994. The difference is that, if then it became possible by military means, today it is can be achieved by diplomatic, political, "- he stressed.
According to the analyst, the basis of this path is the theses already expressed by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan: the responsibility of the parties for peace and the limited powers of Armenia in determining the final fate of the Artsakh people. These theses, according to Sargsyan, should be transformed into a full- fledged, powerful strategy that is completely capable of finally driving Baku into a corner.
In his opinion, this strategy should be based on a qualitatively new Armenian diplomacy based on new resources. These resources are, and they are powerful enough. Sargsyan is convinced that Baku is well aware of the situation better than in Yerevan, as evidenced by the discussion led by Ilham Aliyev. "Most recently, Aliyev stated quite specifically that he would not allow the implementation of the Vienna agreements and changes in the negotiation format," the analyst recalled.
The participation of Baku in the negotiations, according to the analyst, is due to the obligations to resolve the Karabakh conflict exclusively by peaceful means. It was on these conditions that Azerbaijan was recognized as a state, joined various international organizations. And the fact that today they have begun to actively recall these commitments, according to Sargsyan, deprives Azerbaijan of not only the possibilities to initiate a new large-scale aggression, but also to continue, in fact, "military diplomacy."
"In such conditions, we have every opportunity to deprive Azerbaijan of any rights to Artsakh, and only through political means. Those rights that he de jure holds for 30 years. Wars are always aimed at solving problems. And in Baku they should clearly see that the war does not only solve his problems, but exacerbates the contrary. And the current relative calm on the borders only confirms this. Baku realized that the shots were working against them as a result of their own mistakes in April 2016 when the Vienna agreements appeared before them. That is why the border is relatively calm today, "the analyst concluded.
Since 1992, the OSCE Minsk Group, represented by the co-chairs from Russia, the United States and France, has been involved in resolving the Karabakh conflict. At present, the settlement process is proceeding on the basis of the Madrid Principles put forward by the OSCE Minsk Group in 2007 and the Madrid Principles updated in 2009, among other things, providing for the deployment of a peacekeeping force in the conflict zone.