Tuesday, February 13 2024 17:09

ArmInfo. The Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiation process no longer looks like bargaining; Armenia is making unilateral concessions. This is how Russian political scientist Sergei Markedonov commented on the latest  incident on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.

The political scientist noted that recent news reports from  Azerbaijan and Armenia evoke the feeling of traveling in a time  machine. According to him, it was as if there had never been a few  months of calm!  "Official Baku announces a "revenge operation"  in  response to "Armenian provocations." Official Yerevan speaks of  Azerbaijan's groundless attacks on the border village of Nerkin Hand.  Some overly zealous bloggers and telegrammers are predicting a new  regional war.

I'm not sure that in today's conditions it is possible for an expert  who is not directly "on the ground" to identify the main person  responsible for the February escalation. Such attempts will either be  outright speculation, or "the fan's position", accepting the position  of one of the parties, not interested in an objective assessment,"  the Russian expert believes.

At the same time, Markedonov is confident that in this regard it is  extremely important to identify the systemic reasons for the current  aggravation. "It definitely cannot be considered a coincidence. And  here again it is necessary to repeat the old thesis that the conflict  between Armenia and Azerbaijan is not limited to the Karabakh format.  It is broader. Otherwise, after the September "day and a half war"  and the completion of the process of restoring Azerbaijani  territorial integrity, the gestalt would have been closed .  However,  it is still far from being the case. As Ilham Aliyev's assistant  Hikmet Hajiyev said in an interview with Berliner Zeitung, there are  still "several unresolved issues." But among them is the delimitation  and demarcation of the state border. A fundamental issue for any  state! Without its solution, the peace treaty may remain just paper,"  he added.

The expert stated that this is where the differences between the  parties do not end, but continue. He mentioned that Yerevan is  talking about the de facto territorial expansion of Azerbaijan from  2020 to 2022 at the expense of some territories of the Republic of  Armenia itself. Markedonov believes that this is where the  actualization of Armenia's territorial integrity, not Azerbaijan's,  becomes relevant.

"Baku is focusing on enclaves/exclaves. And if the Armenian side  wants to save face, the Azerbaijani side is in a hurry to finally and  preferably consolidate the victory forever.

The parties have different rates of progress towards a peace  agreement. The negotiation process itself no longer looks like  bargaining; Armenia is making unilateral concessions. But at the same  time it wants to prolong this process by achieving some kind of  external support. Expecting, at some stage, someone big and strong  will bring Azerbaijan to it senses , which has acquired a taste and  is not ready to "make haste slowly," the expert noted.

At the same time, he drew attention to the fact that the logic of the  Armenian leadership is something like this: the old status quo was  broken largely due to the passivity of Russia, it is necessary to  find some more effective allies-partners.

"The key word here is diversification! Nikol Pashinyan touched on  this in his last interview with the Republic's Public Radio and in  his last interview with The Daily Telegraph. 'Cynically' speaking, if  such a "compensatory mechanism" had worked, then the Prime Minister  of Armenia could be preparing a chapter about their diplomatic  talents in a future history textbook. But it doesn't work! And the  (in)activity of the EU monitoring group, and French promises without  clear guarantees and tools are the best proof of this thesis.  Conclusion: Baku is in a hurry and wants a complete resolution,  Yerevan is waiting, playing for time, hoping almost like a miracle.  Hope dies last.

However, the not very effective actions of the Armenian leadership in  the international arena (not even from the Russian point of view, but  in fact and in the result), and the even less pleasant actions of the  West (from the point of view of the interests of the Russian  Federation) should not create some kind of "resentment complex" in  Moscow. Emotions in general are a bad advisor. "Getting upset with"  Armenia and going to Azerbaijan is not the most creative idea, if  only because Baku also has its own windows and doors to the West. In  general, there cannot be simple recommendations here; the main thing  is the desire to listen and hear them. Escalation is a consequence of  systemic problems in the peace process. And a blow to him, without  illusions, will also ricochet into the interests of Russia, we need  to think, first of all, about this," Markedonov concluded.