ArmInfo.On the issue of the Karabakh conflict settlement, the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, by and large, follows the example of Ilham Aliyev. A similar opinion was expressed to ArmInfo by Head of the Department of Conflict and Migration Studies, Institute of Peace and Democracy (Netherlands), political scientist Arif Yunusov.
"I can say that, at least on this issue, their position and policy, in general, are very similar. Both of them talk about peace, send their sons to military service. And at the same time, they escalate the tension on the Line of Contact of troops through militaristic statements of the heads of defense ministries. In this light, as I understand it, the Armenian prime minister still does not fully understand the importance and necessity of resolving the Karabakh conflict, "he stressed.
Despite the significant intensification of the negotiation process on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with the change of power in Armenia: the heads of state and the foreign ministers met more than a dozen times, killings of military personnel at the border after a short break resumed. In this light, the Azerbaijani political scientist is quite pessimistic about the prospects for ending the border killings. Convinced of the need to stop the deaths on the Line of Contact in Karabakh and the Armenia-Azerbaijan interstate border, Yunusov believes that the withdrawal of heavy equipment and the cessation of snipers are quite possible. Especially considering that this issue has been discussed repeatedly. The Azerbaijani political scientist compared Pashinyan's Stepanakert statement addressed to the Karabakh people, according to which Karabakh is part of Armenia, with Aliyev's famous statement about the need to return Yerevan to Azerbaijan. According to him, this statement by the Azerbaijani president was addressed to Azerbaijanis, primarily those who came from Armenia and was aimed at raising his own ratings. However, it was not Azerbaijanis, but Armenians who took seriously and very negatively this openly populist statement. "In a similar way, Pashinyan's statement was perceived as a call to war in Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, in fact, both of them do not change anything. And here a completely reasonable question arises about the degree of mood and caution of the Armenian prime minister to such subtle and serious issues. And, of course, the degree of responsibility for the life and blood of young soldiers on both sides of the conflict, "the political scientist concluded.