West sparing no effort to squeeze Russia out of South Caucasus -  Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan

ArmInfo.The West is sparing no effort to squeeze Russia out of the South Caucasus, political expert  Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan wrote on his Facebook account.  

According to him, they see the way to solve this problem by devaluing  the Russian military presence in the region through the settlement of  the Armenian-Azerbaijani and Armenian-Turkish conflicts. Russia, for  its part, the political scientist continued, is fighting not only to  restore its influence not only in the region, but throughout the  entire post-Soviet space. "However, in this struggle, the Russian  authorities set certain priorities on the fronts of geopolitical  competition, giving priority not to the South Caucasus, but to  Ukraine," Melik-Shahnazaryan emphasized.

He noted that the next dimension of the confrontation between Russia  and the West in the South Caucasus is the region's communication  capabilities and infrastructure. And this is precisely the area where  Turkey has an offer to both Russia and the West. The  Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiation process also depends on the outcome  of geopolitical competition in the field of communications. In this  context, as the political scientist emphasized, the  Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiation process and especially the signing  of a peace treaty will be determined not by the efforts of  Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol  Pashinyan, but by the new balance of forces and influences that has  emerged as a result of geopolitical competition.

"Until the end of this rivalry, Armenia and Azerbaijan will continue  to remain tools in the hands of larger powers. The Artsakh issue,  like the Armenian-Azerbaijani relationship, is much more  comprehensive and meaningful than the narrow personal interests of  Pashinyan and Aliyev. This is a geopolitical problem in which Russia  ", Turkey, Iran, the USA and other centers are pursuing goals that  are vitally important to them. The regional interests of the  geopolitical centers are known and are very openly pursued by them.   Naturally, all the events that are taking place today in the South  Caucasus and which should predetermine the future of our region are  determined by these very programs and the effectiveness of the  activities of the powers behind them," the expert believes, adding  that the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan are delaying the  negotiation process by tacit agreement. One hopes that time will  bring new opportunities to his country and himself, the other with  the simple intention of postponing unpleasant events. "Pashinyan and  Aliyev are allies on this issue," the expert states.