Resumption of military operations in Karabakh conflict zone fraught with recurrence of Syrian scenario

The heavy artillery shelling by the Azerbaijani armed forces claimed three civilians’ lives in the near-border Armenian settlements in Tavush province on September 24 and four NKR Defense Army servicemen’s lives on September 25. How would you explain the reasons and goals of the Baku regime’s criminal behavior?      

The key goal of that policy has been unchanged for many years – the policy aimed to restore Baku’s power over the entire territory of the former Azerbaijani SSR. Realizing the impossibility of military revenge amid the current military-political balance in the region, the Azerbaijani authorities have been conducting a policy of comprehensive pressure on Armenia. The Azeri diplomacy has managed to create in many countries influential groups of lobbyists to neutralize the political influence of Armenian Diaspora. At the same time, a large-scale propaganda is being carried out to spread the Azeri view of the history. The active Azeri and Turkish diplomacy is giving effective results and influencing the policy of many states. Baku is also exerting pressure on Armenia, and the constant tension on the border is one of the components of that pressure. Azerbaijan has recently increased the military pressure along the entire line of contact in the Karabakh conflict zone and on the border with Armenia, using military hardware. At the same time, they do not switch from local clashes to full-scale military operations that would be followed by launch of the CSTO mechanism. The aggravation of the situation does not intensify capitulation sentiments in Armenia. An opposite picture is observed and this leads to further escalation in the region and increases the threat of new war.

The Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers met with the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs in New York. The Presidents are expected to meet. Do you think such events have any prospects amid the Aliyev regime’s military crimes against the civilians in Armenia and Karabakh?  

The suspension of the negotiation process would mean one more step towards a new war in the region. Such a war amid the ongoing developments would become a national tragedy for the entire South Caucasus. The war may become easy, fast or victorious for neither of the sides. The situation is most likely to go under the Syrian scenario. The attempts to defuse the tension in the region through negotiations are quite substantiated. At the same time, even the peace process itself plays the role of a restraining factor and allows reducing the tension to some extent.

Under the updated Russian-Armenian treaty on strategic partnership and the treaty on Armenia’s CSTO membership, Moscow bears responsibility for defense of not only “external” borders with Turkey and Iran, but also the “internal" border with Azerbaijan.  Moscow has not taken a single efficient step so far to confirm that status, except supplying both Armenia and Azerbaijan with arms. This allows the concerned actors to speak of Russia’s interest in maintaining tension on the Azerbaijani-Armenian border and on the line of contact between Azerbaijan and Karabakh. What do you think of that?

The CSTO membership guarantees Armenia’s security against external aggression. The CSTO leadership has repeatedly stressed the inadmissibility of military solution to the Karabakh conflict and has expressed its concern over the tension on the line of contact. Why does the CSTO or Russia fail to take more decisive measures to influence Azerbaijan? It is no wonder that Baku evades further expansion of military actions. In that case, the developments might be interpreted as aggression - illegal use of force of one state or group of states against another state. The CSTO Charter is based on the international law principles. The Charter says that the CSTO members take joint measures to form an efficient collective security system that ensures collective defense in case of a threat to security, stability, territorial integrity and sovereignty and exercise of the right to collective defense. As we see, the matter concerns the “threat to security, stability, territorial integrity and sovereignty” of a CSTO member state by an external aggressor. The Collective Security Treaty says that in case of such a threat, the CSTO member states immediately launch joint consultations to coordinate their positions and take measures to help the endangered member state to remove the threat.

Despite the escalation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, there have been no reports about the launch of such consultations. The CSTO mechanism would come into effect in case of a real threat to Armenia’s existence if Azerbaijan initiated full-scale military operations. This is what Baku seeks to avoid and this is why it prevents further escalation. Certainly, one cannot rule out that the constant provocations on the line of contact aim to not only exert pressure on Armenia but also make Armenia take retaliatory measures. If these retaliatory measures become defensive and large-scale, Baku will have an opportunity to blame Armenia for not only “occupation” of its own territory but also for new “aggression”. This may create big problems for Armenia on the international arena, even within the CSTO. The CSTO Charter says that all decisions in the CSTO are taken through a consensus and the CSTO members may have different views of the incidents on the border and in the Karabakh conflict zone.

The talk with the residents of the Armenian and NKR villages suffering from Azerbaijani aggression suggests that a large-scale war with Azerbaijan is not so unlikely and that no foreign interests will stop the natural aspiration of the civilians to survive. Do you think the situation on the border may run both out of external control and out of the direct control of Yerevan, Stepanakert and Baku?

The situation is unlikely to run out of control on the border section defended by the Russian frontier guards. The situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and in the Karabakh conflict zone triggers big concerns. When the tension runs high, the situation may really run out of control of Yerevan, Stepanakert and Baku. If the developments in the region go on spontaneously, it will not only create a favorable situation for intervention of foreign forces, but will also allow the instability southward of the South Caucasus to spread into the South Caucasus.

Would you specify the foreign forces interested in an outbreak of a new full-scale war in the South Caucasus?

Those are the radical Islamists who seek to create a global caliphate and use all the most brutal methods for that. The key global actors are not interested in a new war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, because the new war will create numerous additional problems. They are interested in the settlement of the conflict or at least in its freezing. The reason of the current escalation is Baku’s aspiration to retrieve all the territories, which used to be part of the Azerbaijani SSR.

Moscow is already trying to take advantage of the deterioration of the Baku-Brussels relations, trying to involve the Aliyev regime in a new format of relations. Do you think Yerevan and Stepanakert may have to pay for such a format?

Nothing can be totally ruled out, even withdrawal of Russian troops and frontier guards from Armenia. Some political forces advocate suspension of relations with Russia and even a breach of relations. It is hard not to notice their activity in the Armenian information field. Can Moscow totally rule out the possibility that such political forces will come to power in Yerevan? Azerbaijan is important for Moscow. Russia will not benefit from Azerbaijan’s joining the “problematic” countries in the post-Soviet space. However, the relations with Armenia are too important for Russia and the latter cannot diminish the level of the Russian-Armenian bilateral relationship for the sake of virtual rapprochement with Azerbaijan. So, there are no grounds to speak of a new format of Moscow-Baku relations.