Sergei Markov: the balance of powers has changed in favor of Azerbaijan

What is happening now changes the status quo in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and the ongoing fighting in Azerbaijan promotes peace talks, the director of the Institute of Political Studies, Sergei Markov, expressed confidence in an interview with the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, speaking about the likely consequences of today's fighting in Karabakh.

"I think the negotiations will be stimulated by this. The parties and mediators now realize on the basis of this conflict that there are frozen conflicts, during which the negotiations are under way, but here we don't have a situation of a frozen conflict and negotiations are not being conducted,’’ he said.

There may be a few reasons for the transition of the conflict into an active phase, in his opinion, beginning with the escalation of one of the regular violations of the ceasefire. "Most likely, in my opinion, it is an accidental escalation in connection with some particular skirmish between the militaries, perhaps between spies or commandos. The problem is that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is one of the few regional conflicts where direct combat contact of the sides is preserved, so that the probability of an escalation of accidents is very high," Sergey Markov said.

The second option is the decision of Azerbaijan to demonstrate the unsatisfactory state of the process of the peace settlement of the conflict in response to one of the provocations by Armenia. "The current situation still fixes the distribution of the parties that existed 25 years ago. During this time the balance of power has changed significantly in favor of Azerbaijan, but the OSCE Minsk Group still does nothing,’’ he noted.

The provocation on the part of Armenia is an attempt by Yerevan ‘’to some extent to transfer the possible crisis ahead, because the balance of power is gradually changed in the direction of Azerbaijan, so it is not going to be advantageous for Armenia to have a conflict in the future, because it will probably be defeated."

Recall that on the night of April 2nd the Armenian troops from the occupied Azerbaijani territories opened fire on the peaceful Azerbaijani population, which was stopped only after the fighting response of the Azerbaijani army. The provocation was carried out in the absence of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, the Supreme Commander of the Republic, who is currently on a visit to the US.

In this regard the objectives of the Armenian provocation were the breakdown of the negotiations of Ilham Aliyev in Washington, possible territorial changes in favor of the occupation regime and intimidation of innocent civilians in Azerbaijan. The results were completely the opposite – now the counterattacking Azerbaijani troops have liberated part of the territories, which had been under occupation for more than 20 years.