ArmInfo. In the situation developing in the Greater Middle East, the possibility of a terrorist war in the South Caucasus is much more likely than a full-scale war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The head of the Center for Post-Soviet Studies of the IMEMO RAS, the president of the Scientific Society of Caucasians Alexander Krylov expressed opinion. "We see that the "spring" has not come to Iran, and the authorities have been able to cope with the upheavals. After the failure of the attempt to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the probability of a US military force and its allies to "solve the Iranian problem" has decreased.
Syria and Iraq, the terrorists who fought there are quite capable of transferring their activities to other countries and regions. In this light, it is not necessary to exclude the terrorist threat for Armenia and neighboring countries, "the expert is convinced. Among the main obstacles to the beginning of a full-scale war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Krylov calls the military balance existing between the parties to the conflict, guaranteeing Armenia's security from external aggression, Armenia's membership in the CSTO. In such a situation, the expert predicts the continuation of the initiation by Azerbaijan aimed at exhausting the Armenian sides, local skirmishes on the contact line of the parties in Karabakh.
The big war in Karabakh is fraught with unpredictable consequences for Baku, which practically exclude the possibility of realizing such a scenario. The OSCE Minsk Group has been dealing with the settlement of the Karabakh conflict since 1992, represented by the co-chairs from Russia, the United States and France. Currently, the settlement process is based on the Madrid Principles put forward by the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs in 2007 and updated in 2009, including, among other things, the deployment of a peacekeeping contingent in the conflict zone.