According to the former deputy of the NKR National Assembly, Vahram Atanesyan, Azerbaijan is trying to set up a “legal basis” of a new aggression against Artsakh
– In the interview with American Bloomberg media-company, the President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, has mentioned, “It’s “unreasonable” for Armenia to resume peace talks with Azerbaijan over the disputed territory without security guarantees because “the situation is entirely different now.” So, whether the giving up of the Armenian side from talks means that the large-scale war in the Karabakh-Azerbaijani front is close. Will Azerbaijan go for a new adventure, especially as the president has also mentioned that Russia’s mediation may not be sufficient to avert large-scale collisions?
– The Armenian side does not give up the negotiations. President Sargsyan has said that it is senseless to run talks under the constant threat of war resumption. And it’s a very simple truth. In 1994, a ceasefire was established not for one of the parties to strengthen its military resources and dictate conditions to the other party but to find acceptable solutions in conditions of relative peace and mutual trust-building. It leaves an impression that this statement has already caused much inconvenience to the Baku regime. The situation is such that due to the four-day aggression, Azerbaijan’s intention to dictate preconditions to the Armenian side gives an actual boomerang effect. Today, Armenia sets preconditions to resume talks exclusively in security conditions. Aliyev’s regime will have to put up with it. And thus, all his efforts to “start everything from scratch” loses its effect.
– Serzh Sargsyan spoke also about the deployment of Russian peacekeepers, saying, ” If there are no negotiations, how can Russian forces appear in Karabakh or between Azeri and Karabakh forces?” The fact that the President spoke about the Russian forces provides grounds to assume that the access of other peacekeepers is not excluded.
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– I do not understand so. The President’s emphasis has quite a different implication. As far as I understand, there is a remark here that the mediation in the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement cannot and should not be the monopoly of an individual country’s monopoly. If we recall the publication in the Russian and Azerbaijani media preceding Lavrov’s visit, then the snapshot, as they say, will be more complete.
– Judging from the RA President and US Secretary of State John Kerry a day before telephone conversation, the role of the first violin should smoothly pass from Russia to the US especially since Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who had come to attend the meetings – according to Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman – with a new package of solutions, turned out that he had not brought new proposals with him. Serzh Sargsyan actually gave up his promises given in Kazan in 2011. What can the United States offer that Russia did not want or was not profitable for it?
– In the politics, there is no “black and white” image. I said that no country’s mediation priority can be a guarantee in the Nagorno-Karabakh peace talks. This also refers to the United States. If there is no consolidated approach of co-chairs, then everyone should make efforts for the situation to remain under control. This is the most important. It was no secret for the experts that Russia and the US being in geopolitically opposite poles are unable to come to a common consensus for the settlement of the Karabakh conflict. But they can reach an agreement that they will not try to unilaterally change the status quo. For the sake of their own interests.
– Is the Nagorno-Karabakh issue becoming a new platform for Russian-American confrontation?
– I’m not that pessimistic. As I said, the imperative of enhancing the ceasefire and creating an atmosphere of trust between the parties is the possibility of cooperation between Russia and the United States. And it must be used. As long as there are no global agreements, the temptation to solve the problem by the help of one of the force centers in its favor can really lead to a new hotbed of the Russian-American resistance. It is an unforgivable adventure, to which Azerbaijan applied by an aggression in the first days of April. President Sargsyan urges the international community to create an atmosphere (if you wish, real mechanisms) of legal and political restraints that will eliminate this kind of temptation.
– Has the moment of NKR-Armenia military cooperation agreement and NKR’s recognition by Armenia matured?
– No moment matures in itself. The solutions general from necessity. But prior to it, an atmosphere of making the decision understandable and acceptable is created. Azerbaijan’s aggression in April opened up an opportunity to take decisive steps and make them understandable to the international community. The rest, as they say, can be an issue of time and “technical”. But we should not also forget that “pause” in diplomacy is often more speaking …
– As reported by the RA Ministry of Foreign Affairs, today, a letter “Azerbaijan’s next provocation” was circulated in the UN General Assembly and the Security Council, “which trying to lay the responsibility on Armenia, to unilaterally cancel the open-end tripartite ceasefire agreement signed between Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia on May 12, 1994.” What does this mean?
– Being unaware of the content of the “letter”, I cannot make judgments. I assume that Azerbaijan intends not to cancel the agreement but to initiate a discussion on the Karabakh conflict in the UN. If this is true, it means that the Baku regime hopes to extort a resolution from the UN General Assembly as once it had already done before. But this is done to create a “legal ground” for the next aggression against Artsakh. The Minsk Group co-chair countries are the permanent members of the UN Security Council. I think they have a chance not to allow it.
Interviewer Nelly GRIGORYAN,
“Aravot” daily
