ArmInfo. The absence of Nagorno-Karabakh at the negotiating table is nothing but a guarantee of the long-term preservation of the existing status quo. Director of the Armenian Institute of International Relations and Security Stepan Safaryan expressed a similar opinion to ArmInfo.
"If the parties to the Karabakh conflict and the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs have a goal not only to resume negotiations, but also to start a substantive discussion, then the representatives of Nagorno- Karabakh should certainly be at the negotiating table. However, by their visit only to Yerevan and Baku, the co-chairs demonstrated a desire to ignore the opinion of Stepanakert - this, in my opinion, necessary for the resumption of negotiations is a fact, "the analyst emphasized.
On February 20, the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs Igor Popov, Andrew Sheffer and Stephane Visconti held meetings in Yerevan with Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. On February 21, the co-chairs visited Baku, where they met with President Ilham Aliyev. Stepanakert was not included in the program of the co-chairs' visit. According to ArmInfo sources at the Artsakh Republic Foreign Ministry, the co-chairs visited only Yerevan and Baku, since the main purpose of the visit was to organize the first official meeting of the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Nevertheless, according to Safaryan, Yerevan's intention to return the Artsakh people to the negotiation process set a new, extremely difficult task for the mediators to convince Baku of the need for this return. And so far the co-chairs do not implement this task. In turn, excluding the proposal of Armenia, Baku accuses the mediators of unwillingness to change the status quo, continuing from time to time to voice threats against Stepanakert and Yerevan.
According to the analyst, there are no alternatives for the Azerbaijani authorities to participate in the peace process. Since, in view of the readiness of the Armenian parties to repeat the events of April 2016, the next escalation of Baku will not be solved. Moreover, given the readiness of Armenia to recognize Artsakh within the existing borders as a result of the April escalation, the next adventure of Baku will make this recognition inevitable. Moreover, the repetition of the April war will finally bring negotiations to a dead end.