Thomas de Waal: It is a misconception that Moscow is pulling the  strings in the Karabakh conflict

ArmInfo."Now that the latest diplomatic initiative, spearheaded by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, has stalled, there is a temptation for Baku to retry  what might be called military leverage - to launch another operation  to recapture territory and put pressure on the Armenian side," Thomas  de Waal, Senior Fellow at Carnegie Europe, says in his article "The  Threat of a Karabakh Conflict in 2017".

The expert notes that the risk is that a small operation would  inevitably escalate into something even more serious than last time.  "The Azerbaijani authorities would be under pressure to capture  substantial amounts of territory, rather than the small slivers they  took last time. The Armenians would be under pressure from their  public to fight more strongly than they did last April and reverse  any gains made by the other side.  Both sides almost certainly  overestimate their military prowess. Both also have newly acquired  deadly weaponry," Tom de Wall says, pointing at Iskander missiles  obtained by Armenia from Russia and the Azerbaijani big weapons  purchases from Israel, including an Iron Dome missile-defense system  and military drones.

"If the military context is dangerous, the political one is no  better. Azerbaijan's oil boom has ended and the economy has declined  further over the last year, shrinking by around 4 percent in 2016,  with the manat having lost 57 percent of its value since January  2015," he notes.

The expert points out that in Armenia, President Serzh Sargsyan faces  a tricky parliamentary election on April 2. "When the vote is  completed, his country is due to make the transition to a new  constitution in which executive power switches from the president to  the parliament. This is widely perceived as a gambit by Sargsyan,  whose second and last presidential term ends in 2018, to find a way  of shoring up his own power. The switch is controversial and the  opposition will use the election to challenge him in all ways  possible. A final factor of instability is international  turbulence-the election of Donald Trump as U.S.  president, ongoing  crises in the EU-which is being felt in the South Caucasus and could  encourage the parties to behave more irresponsibly and believe they  can get away with more," he writes.

At the same time, the expert stresses that if there is fighting, it  will be hard to manage. He recalls that in April 2016, Moscow  negotiated a verbal ceasefire between the parties. "But it is a  misconception that Moscow is pulling the strings in the Karabakh  conflict. Moscow has never been in control since the dispute broke  out in 1988, having tried variously to back one side or the other or  to mediate. Currently, Russia is highly distrusted in both countries  and neither Baku nor Yerevan will allow it to impose its own agenda  on their number one national issue. In short, the threat of  preemptive violence over Karabakh needs to be met with intense  preemptive diplomacy. A descent into new conflict in the South  Caucasus is the last thing anyone wants-least of all the ordinary  Armenians and Azerbaijanis who will be caught in the middle of it,"  Tom de Waal says.