Artur Sakunts, Head of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly, referring to the Karabakh conflict in the interview with 1in.am, said, “There will be no war.” In the meantime, many experts and politicians insist claim antipathetically that large-scale hostilities are inevitable.
Aravot.am asked Sakunts to comment on his substantiations of reassuring that there will be no hostilities on the Karabakh-Azerbaijan conflict. “First of all, the four-day war in April showed that even the fact of the concession of those 800 hectares the despite its long-run and large-scale contributions in its armory, however, Azerbaijani side does not have the potential to overcome the war. In other words, when constantly talking about the solution of the issue thru militarily, I consider this test a failure. Plus, the very poor state of Azerbaijan’s economy. In other words, Azerbaijan does not have the proper basis for the economic capacities, based on which the military rhetoric was changed for a long time, therefore. Plus, the fall in oil prices and the restrictions of its economic resources,” substantiated Sakunts.
One of the substantiations of Sakunts is the response of the international community in connection with the April war, “The tough negative estimates of the international community to those hostilities are unequivocal. In the sense that the war as a means of solving the problem was not approved. Moreover, in the event of its domestic problems, I mean the political prisoners, persecutions, and the obvious back off from the democratic institutions. All this does not present the Azerbaijani authorities at the international arena in a good way.”
As observed by Artur Sakunts, there is one important circumstance of not waging a war: currently, the necessity of shaping new Kremlin-Washington relations is moved to the foreground. This means that after Trump being elected, some time is required to clarify these relationships, “Obama had a clear line with his administration, now, the US stance towards Russia is unknown. Certainly, on the one hand, Russia will try to occupy a favorable geographical position for itself by taking an advantage of the transition period.
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On the other hand, Russia will not dare to resort to drastic actions which are not known how the new US administration will react to, for the foreign political direction of Trump’s administration is not yet known. This is important, as Russia is a decisive factor in the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. And Russia cannot do drastic steps alone, including the large-scale hostilities as one of its manifestations unless it has a certain notion about the approaches of the new US administration. In this sense, this is going to be a restraining factor. And this will require quite a long time until their relationships are “given a restart”.
The human rights activist believes that Armenia also does not have the resources to arouse hostilities or to increase the tension, “Hence, despite all the estimations, these estimations are the first perceptions associated merely with the April war, I do not think that there will be large-scale hostilities. At least, this year.”
The other substantiation by Sakunts regarding the exclusion of the war is, as he mentioned, the aggravation of the Karabakh conflict is not in the interests of any force centers for the already existing hotspots: Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and already Turkey, are sufficient, and to awaken a new hotspot is not profitable for them, “This is not in their interests. Not because Russia is not inclined to aggravate, on the contrary, Russia’s sole tool left is to generate tension. But to add one more hotspot to already existing ones is beyond Russia’s efforts. Here, involuntarily, exists an Armenia-Azerbaijan at the regional level, also, in a big sense, a US-Russia balance. Russia is not in a good economic shape. However, Karabakh is not the problem based on which Russia may try to create a new spot of tension without resolving the problems of its positioning in other hotspots.”
Nelly BABAYAN
