“Real incidents are taking place in the contact line, hence it is not correct to say that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is frozen,” announced Sergey Markedonov, an Associate Professor at Russian State University for the Humanities based in Moscow, at the international forum “Breakthrough of the blockade of Stepanakert: 25 years later”. “Pertaining to Karabakh, we do not see peacekeepers. On the one hand, they are positive factors and keep the parties far from provocations, on the other hand, the peacekeepers are not “abstractions”. When we say a peaceful solution to the conflict, we must understand who benefits from it. We must also understand that the peacekeepers are backed up by the national interests of countries which have sent these peacekeepers. This is a different collection of problems,” said Markedonov referring to the criticism over the intention of deploy peacekeepers in the contact line. He emphasized that the Karabakh conflict, unlike other conflicts, has not become the point of collisions of interests by other countries, “Fortunately, I think Karabakh has not become a territory over which Russia and the West are fighting.”
The political scientist reminded that Armenia is Moscow’s strategic ally but we should not forget that Russia is also interested in Azerbaijan, “We also have our own interests, I understand that there is a problem of emotions.” Speaking about the options for the settlement of the Karabakh conflict, Sergey Markedonov noted that there are contradictions in the “Madrid principles” that give rise to serious problems.
