A political analyst, Candidate of Historical Sciences Oleg Kuznetsov, told Vestnik Kavkaza, commenting on the trilateral meeting of the presidents of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement, which was held yesterday in St. Petersburg, that the negotiation process on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement is comparable to walking up an escalator that goes down.
In the first place the expert drew attention to the lack of substantial progress in resolving the conflict. "The statement about increasing the number of observers is a step back. Within a month, none of the parties has taken action to place tracking systems at the demarcation line, as it was agreed on during the meeting in Vienna in May; and now they try to replace the lack of technology by people. Accordingly, we can say that a step back was taken as far as a technological monitoring in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is concerned. One cannot assign an observer to every soldier in every military unit. This is a stalemate that will not help to improve the situation on the front line," he pointed out.
"Moreover, at the St. Petersburg meeting we did not hear anything about international peacekeepers, which are supposed to enter the territory of the Nagorno-Karabakh region after the de-occupation of the Azerbaijani territories. New mechanisms have not been proposed and the old mechanism does not work. In fact, it is like moving up the escalator that goes down. No one is moving forward, the situation is sliding towards a war. The sides still have not moved away from the April situation, and I do not see a peaceful settlement of the conflict any time soon," Oleg Kuznetsov admitted.
According to him, Russia has found itself in an awkward situation when both sides of the conflict are not willing to compromise. "At the same time, Russia is tied hand and foot by its commitments to Armenia in the CSTO framework. Therefore, any concessions to Azerbaijan will be seen by Armenia as a betrayal. As a result, Russia, without offering or creating any new military and political scenarios of the conflict resolution, is losing its positions of a moderator of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. We have received carte blanche from Europe to hold these talks, but the ‘door’ may be closed very soon. And if that happens, we should expect another escalation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, where Russia will receive a status of the aggressor's ally," the political expert warned.
He also noted that the initiative at the front line is in Azerbaijan’s hands now, which is conducting large-scale military exercises these days. "Everything depends on the will of the political leadership in Azerbaijan. Only the Azerbaijani army can change the situation on the front line. And this means that Azerbaijan will continue to apply political and military pressure on Armenia in order to force it to liberate the occupied territories," Oleg Kuznetsov concluded.
