Preventing the resumption of war in the region. This is the cause of the current active interest of the international community with regard to the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Such an opinion was expressed by political scientist Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan in an interview with Aravot.am. Note that the US Secretary of State John Kerry had a telephone conversation with the President of Armenia about Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Kerry also had a telephone conversation with President of Azerbaijan. On June 30, the presidents of Russian Federation and France also had a telephone conversation about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The OSCE Chairman-in-Office, also Foreign Minister of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier and the President of Artsakh also had discussed issues related to the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict settlement and regional developments.
In a press conference with the journalists in Tbilisi, Steinmeier told that Germany as an OSCE co-chair country strives to achieve a settlement of the Karabakh conflict. On 4 July, Russian Foreign Minister’s visit to Armenia and then to Azerbaijan is expected. Political scientist Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan thinks that the attention of the international community on the Karabakh conflict settlement is driven by the war in April showed the consequences of the war on the security in the region, “They have imagined the possible scopes of the war and it is also due to this that they are trying to do everything to avoid this disastrous consequences. I think that this is also supplemented by the postures of the Azerbaijani authorities, which clearly indicate that they have no intention of peaceful settlement and by their maximalist claims, they are preparing grounds for the new war. This time, the international community is trying to act a little quicker and more effectively and to prevent the resumption of the possible war on time. ”
Melik-Shahnazaryan and observed that the goal of this activeness of the international community, both by the level of the OSCE Minsk Group and others, is one: to restrain Azerbaijan and to prevent the militaristic approaches that can cause a reason for a new war. The NKR Presidential Spokesperson, Davit Babayan, has said, “Yes, we are ready for concessions.”
To the question of Aravot.am that give this statement made by Babayan, whether the activeness of the international community in these days speaks also about the fact that some agreement, however, is reached at the cost of concessions, the political scientist said, “I do not think that the negotiations process will be resumed now. On the contrary, we see that the negotiations are stopped, and now only preparatory works are conducted to resume the talks in the future again. In other words, I do not see the possibility of the agreements at this stage. The mediators are willing to return everything to the former logic, however, I do not see possibilities of agreeing and such developments at this point, and I think it’s impossible.”
Read also
According to Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan, the senior international officials see the option of avoiding the war in the resumption of the negotiation process, and until then, by accelerating the working group meetings, they are trying to remove the risk of the resumption of war in that way. To the question of Aravot.am that if Aliyev had in mind to resume a war, especially since the Russian-Turkish relations are normalized, so whether Aliyev will consider the opinion of the international community and these officials would be able to restrain Aliyev, the political scientist said, “I am sure that if Russia, France and the United States use their whole economic and political potential to restrain Azerbaijan, then they have this ability. But the reality is that no one yet has made such a serious step, and everyone is satisfied with different statements or organizing meetings. No mechanism of true pressure has been used against Azerbaijan until now, and this factor of international pressure has not been used yet.”
Nelly BABAYAN
