ArmInfo.Achieving peace in the South Caucasus does not in any way depend on Armenia or Azerbaijan. It depends on Turkey, Russia, Iran and other major geopolitical players. Sociologist Karen Sargsyan expressed this opinion to ArmInfo.
"Against this background, all the latest fuss around delineating borders and unblocking communications seems to be simply pointless. If Moscow really wants to unblock our region, it needs to take one single step - to restore relations with Georgia. Of course, the latter implies the elimination of the occupation of Georgian territories. After that, the Abkhazian section of the railway will again connect Armenia and Azerbaijan with Russia. And the unblocking of the Nakhchivan section through Julfa will make it possible to establish a through railway communication with Iran, "he said.
In his opinion, at the same time, a completely different issue is the presence of forces interested in laying transit routes through Azerbaijan bypassing Georgia and with the aim of destroying the current transit potential of Georgia. This is due to the current controllability of Georgia by the West. Meanwhile, Russia and Turkey are doing everything possible today in the direction of achieving a common goal - ousting the West from the South Caucasus.
The sociologist explains the latter by the serious conflicts between Erdogan's Turkey and the West, for which Turkey has long become a watchdog on a NATO leash. The latter periodically lengthens and shortens this leash based on Turkey's behavior and geopolitical expediency. In his opinion, as regards, for example, bilateral relations between the United States and Turkey, they periodically turn into a negative balance.
Against this background, Turkey, according to Sargsyan, has no choice but to negotiate with Russia. What the Turks are doing quite successfully. As it has traditionally been done over the past two hundred years in the South Caucasus within the framework of agreements between Russia and Turkey. In this light, the sociologist recalled that the main insurmountable contradictions between Russia and Turkey were historically generated in the straits and in the Balkans. In the conditional South Caucasus, Turks and Russians have always found a common ground and divided the region as they please.
"Against this background, we in Armenia still do not understand in which direction the global geopolitical processes are developing. We do not understand and do not want to understand what the world offers us and, accordingly, what the world expects from us. Our authorities do not have an appropriate analytical team that would be able to develop an appropriate strategy, not only in foreign, but even in domestic policy. As a result, one assumption remains - all this work on Armenia is being carried out outside of Armenia. Hence the results that I mentioned at the beginning of our conversation ", summed up Sargsyan.