The fighting in Karabakh, which is a result of today's military provocation on the part of the occupying regime, is legally irrelevant to Armenia, since Azerbaijan is fighting on its own territory, freeing it from occupation, and due to this the mediators leading the process of a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict have no grounds for a strong reaction, a leading expert of the Political Science Center ‘North-South’, Alexander Karavayev, said in an interview with a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza.
"One of the benefits that Baku will be able to receive from such a development of events is the ability to check in practice the reaction of the international community to this kind of use of force in response, given that we are talking about military operations directly on the territory of Azerbaijan. It is known that these areas are listed as the areas which should be returned to Azerbaijan in several UN Security Council resolutions, but there is no real progress, and the fights do not relate to the territory of Armenia. There would be no tough reaction from the OSCE Minsk group, therefore there is an opportunity to see how the mediators will react,’’ the expert said.
Also, Azerbaijan will be able to test the accumulated military capabilities. ‘’Large-scale military actions are not necessary for this – it is enough to understand the strength of the military combat units during the period of such local, though large-scale conflict, which does not go beyond the boundaries of a relatively small portion of the contact line of fighting. This kind of event was going to happen sooner or later, exactly for testing the capability of the new Azerbaijani Armed Forces, and what is the potential of defense in the self-proclaimed NKR, the expert expressed confidence, adding that if the result of Baku is established, it will provide a rise of patriotism in times of crisis.
According to him, it is difficult to estimate how the fighting will affect the peace talks, as there has been an impasse for a long time, and it has been leading nowhere for many years. ‘’The implementation of the Madrid principles is as long ago as 5-7 years. Perhaps, when Heydar Aliyev was in power, some movement could be identified between Baku and Yerevan, but this did not happen even in the best years. There were good enough periods of convergence of the positions somewhere at the turn of the 90s and the 2000s, but then it slowed down and turned into a phase of high-level discussions, embodied in the initiatives of President Medvedev and the other leaders of the OSCE Minsk group, but they led to nothing. Therefore, we can say that today's battles will lead somewhere or hurt the negotiating process only to a limited extent, with the exception, of course, of the negotiating procedures: there will be no meetings or consultations for some time now,’’ Alexander Karavayev said.
Today's reaction of the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the fighting between the Armed Forces of Azerbaijan and the forces that Yerevan calls the NKR army, but is in fact composed of Armenian combat units, became exponential: Minister of Foreign Affairs Edward Nalbandian managed to hold telephone conversations in connection with the fighting on the territory of Azerbaijan with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the EU Special representative for the South Caucasus, Herbert Salber, the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk group and the personal representative of the OSCE Chairman, Andrzej Kasprzyk.
With these panic phone calls to the diplomats, Nalbandian once again exposed the hypocritical position of Armenia, according to which the so-called NKR forces are in conflict with Azerbaijan, and proved that the military forces of Armenia are illegally on the occupied territory of the sovereign Azerbaijani Republic, the aggressor, from which the Azerbaijani army protects their lands and civilian population.
At the same time, a rise of patriotic sentiment is observed in Azerbaijan. As military experts said long before today's events, in case of even a small successful battle, a general national revival, which will be impossible to stop in the liberation of the motherland from occupation and restoration of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, will start along with other countries of the world, recognized by a strategic partner of the republic, the Russian Federation.
