KARABAKH PROBLEM IS IMPORTANT FOR RUSSIA, BUT IT IS NOT AMONG ITS PRIORITIES - RUSSIAN POLITICAL ANALYST SAYS
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ARKA 16 February 2017
The Nagorno-Karabakh problem is important for Russia, but it is not among its priorities, a Russian political analyst Sergey Markedonov said today at a news conference in Yerevan.
"It is not appropriate to focus all efforts on the Karabakh conflict when neither of the conflicting sides is ready for a compromise solution, when the public sentiments in both countries are much more radical than the position of the authorities," Markedonov said at Novosti-Armenia press center
According to him, Russia is mostly a ‘reactive’ rather than ‘proactive’ country, and by virtue of this fact, it does not impose its agenda, following rather the others’. On the other hand, as noted Markedonov, unlike the Americans, Russians do not voice absurd ideas, and make no statements that are not in tune with practice.
"In this regard, Russia is a country that will break the status quo when it sees someone else started its total destruction," he said.
In this context, he cited the examples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Russia postponed for many years the question of their recognition, ignoring systemic attempts of their leaderships, but as soon as the process of "unfreezing" the conflict began that was fraught with pushing the Russian Federation out of the game, it hurried to recognize their independence.
"In Nagorno-Karabakh in April 2016 did not happen what had happened in 2008 in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. If that had happened, and if it happens, Russia's reaction will be quite tough, because the Russian leadership simply does not want to be "thrown out" from a process ", Markedonov said.
According to him, it is obvious that Baku and Yerevan would like to see Moscow make a final choice.
"Taking into account the loss of influence on Georgia Russia would not turn Azerbaijan into an outright enemy, to put it mildly. Paradoxically, it is neither beneficial to Armenia, because an Azerbaijan hostile to Russian would be more aggressive towards Armenia," Markedonov said.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict erupted into armed clashes after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s as the predominantly Armenian-populated enclave of Azerbaijan sought to secede from Azerbaijan and declared its independence backed by a successful referendum.
On May 12, 1994, the Bishkek cease-fire agreement put an end to the military operations. A truce was brokered by Russia in 1994, although no permanent peace agreement has been signed. Since then, Nagorno-Karabakh and several adjacent regions have been under the control of Armenian forces of Karabakh.
Nagorno-Karabakh is the longest-running post-Soviet era conflict and has continued to simmer despite the relative peace of the past two decades, with snipers causing tens of deaths a year.
On April 2, 2016, Azerbaijan launched military assaults along the entire perimeter of its contact line with Nagorno-Karabakh. Four days later a cease-fire was reached.
