What will happen after peace in Karabakh?

How the Caucasus will change after the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict? How the settlement of the conflict will influence the parties of the conflict and their neighbors in the political, economic and humanitarian spheres? Russian and foreign political analysts told a ‘Vestnik Kavkaza’ correspondent in the context of a series of interviews dedicated to the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement.

Today our guests are political analyst at the Institute of EurAsEC Nada Fridrihson and journalist and expert on the Caucasus Vadim Dubnov, political analyst Ibrahim Ibrahimov and Ph.D. Ibrahim Melikov.

Nadine Fridrihson underlined that if the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is settled it will open enormous opportunities for the economic development of the South Caucasus, whose geographical position is in the the interest in it regional and non-regional players. "Let me remind you that such key arteries as the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline operated in the South Caucasus in spite of the turbulent times. The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway is now gains additional significance in view of the launch of China's economic axis of the Silk road, which can pass through the South Caucasus with the use of the rail service. The benefits of these and many others projects can be implemented in term of peace in the South Caucasus. They will undoubtedly affect their participants and initiators in economic terms, and the region will receive a new life,’’ she explained.

The expert added that the settlement of the conflict would allow to eliminate the political component of the natural competition. "In the context of the confrontation between Russia and Turkey each project will have its instigator and it will be a kind of a competition. If we remove the escalation of the Nagorno-Karabakh from the equation that the situation will be shifted to a healthy competition of the economy without devastating consequences. Anyway, the settlement of the conflict will be a blessing, but it does not negate the fact that leading geopolitical powers will continue to compete in the South Caucasus. Another thing is that they will lose their explosive point that can change the course of events,’’ she said.

Vadim Dubnov expressed a different point of view. "If we speak about it globally, the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict will not change the state of things: it is a regional conflict of quite a local character from my point of view. In general, the current perspectives of consequences is something speculative,’’ he said.

"Primarily it will affect n Armenia in an economic way. The opening of borders with Azerbaijan and Turkey, will change the internal economic configuration, but not in a global way. It may change the political situation, but to a much lesser extent, because there are many words, than any cared,’’ Vadim Dubnov shared his opinion.

"As for Azerbaijan, I don’t really understand how it may profoundly change the situation, but I think that the government will lose after the solving of the Karabakh problem: it will become the idol of country, but then the theme unity will disappear, and the political and economic situation in Azerbaijan is that Karabakh is the last topic, which is a uniting of the masses,’’ he added.

Ibrahim Ibrahimov disagreed, pointing to the importance of the settlement of the conflict for the humanitarian and economic sphere of the region. 

"The settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh is the issue is of great importance not only for Azerbaijan and Armenia, but also for the entire Caucasus region, which is closely intertwined many cultures, ethnic groups and languages. In such circumstances the position of the multinational Azerbaijan state looks more attractive than the ideology of Armenia. I recall that Azerbaijan was initially aimed at the construction of the state that promotes the idea of ​​inter-cultural and inter-ethnic dialogue, while Armenia took the path of building a mono-national state with the radical nationalist ideology. This ideology is destructive and can have the most negative consequences in the region like the Caucasus," Ibrahim Ibrahimov stressed.