By refusing to continue the peace talks on Karabakh, Armenia tries to put pressure on Azerbaijan through others, a famous political analyst Andrei Yepifantsev expressed such opinion in an interview with the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, commenting on the statement of president Serzh Sargsyan about the meaninglessness of the resumption of a political settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict after April clashes in Karabakh.
He believes that Sargsyan made a tactical retreat on the diplomatic level. "This statement has two main purposes. The first one is a demonstrative gesture for the Armenian society, which is concerned about the technological superiority of the Azerbaijani army, which was unexpected for it, as well as about the Armenian army's problems. It also expected that Russia and the CSTO will help Yerevan, after all, this is the whole point of the organization: compensate the military weakness of Armenia. Not only by diplomatic efforts, but also by military efforts of allies, - but it did not happen. Moreover, Lavrov's proposal was considered as pressure in the country, and people were really concerned about the fact that Sargsyan is about to make concessions. So Sargsyan made this gesture, in order to tell the Armenian society that he is not losing ground in the negotiations. And even more, he rejects them in order not to make concessions," the expert said.
"The second one is the desire to put pressure on Azerbaijan by using the international community, so that it would not make attempts, dangerous for Armenia, to change the status quo by military means. Yerevan's entire strategy in recent years consisted in the fact that since Armenia can't legalize Karabakh, it should endlessly keep the situation at the negotiation stage: reject all proposals, but keep Azerbaijan at the negotiating table, because otherwise, hostilities will begin. For 22 years in a row, Armenia just came to the negotiating table, listened and rejected all proposal - and this way, according to Yerevan's plan, it should have continued for many years. When Azerbaijan made it clear that such policy must end, that the profanation of negotiations can't last forever, it worried Armenia. A formula that worked very successfully for a long time is now crumbling, and Sargsyan is trying to put pressure on the international community, to say that he will not discuss the conflict peacefully during such outbursts of anger, and return Baku to the negotiating table by using others," he explained the main idea of Sargsyan.
Such decision was inevitable for the policy, pursued by the president of Armenia. However, he won't be able to stay out of the peace process for too long. "It must be understood that this move is quite short-term, because no one will let Sargsyan to stay out of talks for too long. It won't be understood by the international community, and the international community's support is crucial for Yerevan. Besides, it is necessary to keep Azerbaijan in the negotiation field. I think about a couple of weeks will pass, depending on the global reaction, and Yerevan will once again sit at the negotiating table," he expects.
