Forecast: Baku`s policy on Karabakh will hardly soften within coming  20-30 years

ArmInfo.Baku's policy on Karabakh will hardly soften within the coming 20-30 years, says Arman Melikyan, the former foreign minister of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic (NKR), independent analyst. 

Talking to ArmInfo, Melikyan explained his forecasts with the results  of the recent Constitutional referendum in Azerbaijan that helped the  incumbent leadership of that country retain power for the coming  two-three decades without interruption. "This means that the Armenian  republics should not hope for softer policy of Azerbaijan under  Aliyev," Melikyan said.

In this light, the analyst said, the Armenian side needs to change  its own approaches to the negotiation process to create a system of  arguments and protect the interests of Armenia and Artsakh (NKR). The  political analyst said he is speaking about an action plan for every  possible scenario. The only alternative to such system will be  battlefield where the Armenian forces will have to fight the  Azerbaijani troops.

By preliminary data of the Central Election Commission, the turnout  of the Constitutional referendum on September 26 in Azerbaijan was  69.7%. 84.2% voted to extend the presidential term, which would allow  Aliyev to hold his current position until 2020, when he would have to  run again. A two-term presidential limit was scrapped in 2009, so he  can run as many times as he wishes. The final results of the  referendum will be made public on October 21. With most of the votes  counted, the approval rate for other measures, such as creating an  office of the first vice president and that of a vice president,were  also above 80%, CEC added.