Arkady Dubnov: Artsakh ceases to be at center of "Armenian world"  paradigm

ArmInfo. There is no feeling that it is possible to get out of zugzwang peacefully, since there are points of disagreement between the positions of Armenia and Azerbaijan, even in the situation that has developed after the completely peaceful  statement of Nikol Pashinyan.

Arkady Dubnov, an independent political  scientist, an expert on the CIS countries and Central Asia, announced  this to the Spektr publication the other day. According to him, the  estalishment of the checkpoint blocking Artsakh was provoked, among  other things, by the words of the Prime Minister of Armenia himself.  In his speech, there was no mention of the fate of Karabakh, the  restoration of some kind of peace within the proposed scenario  between Azerbaijan and Armenia. When Pashinyan said that we were  ready to return to the 1991 borders, this meant that Karabakh would  not be part of Armenia, since in 1991 Nagorno-Karabakh was part of  the Azerbaijan SSR. Thus, Pashinyan, by tacit agreement, left  comments on the fate of Karabakh to Aliyev himself. He accepted it in  such a way that Yerevan gives up its positions and its claims to  consider Nagorno Karabakh as Armenian. In this regard, Aliyev behaved  brutally: "Are you giving up Artsakh?  Well, then it's ours. We do  whatever we want there.> He stressed that there is no question of the  status of Nagorno-Karabakh: "Karabakh is Azerbaijan." By the way, he  urged Pashinyan to repeat this phrase.

If you look at everything from this point of view then, according to  Dubnov, in fact, the behavior of Azerbaijan, which is very defiant  and provocative, lies in the logic of preparations for the mutual  recognition of the 1991 borders.

According to Dubnov, for Yerevan, the problem of the security of  Armenia itself, its existence as a state, first of all, lies in an  attempt to provide guarantees for the country from expansion by  Azerbaijan. "This is the main thing, in my opinion, in the content of  Pashinyan's policy, as the authorities who see this reconciliation  agreement with Azerbaijan as an opportunity to get such guarantees.  Despite the fact that the issue of the status of Nagorno-Karabakh by  tacit agreement of Pashinyan is decided in favor of Azerbaijan>, the  political scientist noted. In other words, he noted, Artsakh ceases  to be at the center of the "Armenian world" paradigm, the main point  of which was the existence of two Armenian states.

Speaking about how the citizens of Armenia would react to such a turn  in the country's foreign policy, Dubnov stressed that different  options are possible, but recent years give reason to believe that,  despite the noisy opposition in Armenia, Pashinyan should not be  afraid of some kind of mass street protests. <The opposition does not  have a coherent and viable program of action opposed to Pashinyan's  policy. Therefore, I think that now everything will be decided  depending on how Baku behaves, which is under pressure, on the one  hand, from Russia, which is hoped for in Armenia, and under the  pressure of the Western community, which today expresses, of course,  an active support to Yerevan and demands from Azerbaijan to liquidate  the checkpoint>, the expert noted.

But, according to him, Baku perceives this rhetoric quite cynically,  realizing that the outside world has no opportunity to support  Armenia. First of all, by military means. It will have to deal  directly with Azerbaijan, which is ready to solve this problem again  by force. This is a huge drama and tragedy of today's Armenia.

At the same time, the expert believes that Azerbaijan cannot afford  open aggression against Armenia.  Although already today some parts  of the territory of Armenia are occupied by Azerbaijan. "Russia did  not react to this in any way. As we know, it was the refusal of  Russia and the CSTO to give a political assessment of the annexation  of part of the territories of Armenia by Azerbaijan in September 2022  that caused a very critical reconfiguration of the entire Armenian  policy not in favor of Russia and the CSTO. If something like this  happens again on a larger scale, it could lead to a deep crisis in  the South Caucasus.  And anyway, I don't think that in such a  scenario Russia will help Armenia by military means, unfortunately>  Dubnov said.

At the same time, he noted that any attempt to find a peace agreement  between Baku and Yerevan in Washington and in the West in general  without the participation of Moscow would be accepted in the Kremlin  with great irritation: "I do not rule out that in one way or another  Moscow will try to neutralize this kind of meeting, if not to  interfere with it at all. It will be a very serious defeat for Moscow  if the peace is signed on the terms put forward by the Americans."

Speaking about Russia's tools that it could use to influence the  situation in the region, Dubnov stressed that the peacekeepers can do  nothing but fix the violation associated with the establishment of  the same checkpoint. "They cannot enter into a military confrontation  with the Azerbaijanis. The peacekeepers are only able to report  violations to Moscow, bring to the attention of the Azerbaijani side  that they fix what is happening as a violation, and call for its  elimination. Apparently, the mandate that the Russian peacekeepers  have does not apply for a larger mandate>, the political scientist  noted.  He also noted that the President of Azerbaijan in his last  speech on television sent a very sharp message to the Russian  peacekeepers without mentioning them.  Aliyev said that Baku will not  allow anyone to take control of "its land". It clearly refers to the  presence of Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh.  At the same time, as  Dubnov noted, Moscow persistently and consistently avoids any  aggravation of relations with Azerbaijan, which is important for  Russia as a regional power to maintain its position in the South  Caucasus from the point of view of geopolitics. The tandem of Baku  and Ankara is becoming the most important factor in Europe's energy  security. If Russia loses loyal relations with Azerbaijan, it will  lose its influence on Europe even more than today.