“We are first of all speaking about the right of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh for self-determination. If this issue is resolved the regulation of the rest of the issues of the region will be regulated quite fast and easily. It is evident that we Armenians are more interested in the resolution of the conflict but we wish a long-term regulation, stability and peace in the region. We don’t want to give up Karabakh to Azerbaijan, which will mean obliteration of Karabakh,” last week said RA President Serzh Sargsyan during his interview to the Euronews TV channel. By using the occasion the President called for an Armenian-Azerbaijani agreement on non-use of force in response to a question about Ilham Aliyev’s claims that it will never come to terms with the loss of Karabakh. He stood by the official Armenian line that Karabakh has never been part of an independent Azerbaijan and should therefore remain under Armenian control. “We will do the way to ensure that the military forces of Azerbaijan comply with the order of the chief commander any time needed. This is our sovereign right and we don’t need any advisors on this,” as a response said Aliyev. Azerbaijan rejected over the weekend an Armenian proposal to sign of a non-aggression pact before the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, saying that Yerevan should first ensure the liberation of occupied Azerbaijani territories. During the recent period in parallel with the activation of the negotiations of the NLR conflict the announcements on the possible resumption of war are being activated. Moreover, these statements are not heard only from Azerbaijan. Recently the international organizations are also speaking about such a possibility. Moreover, information is spread that in Karabakh they are conducting preparatory activities for the war. The district military commissions have started recruiting RA citizens. After that they are taken to military trainings. As a result of this the hazard of resumption of war is intensified. During a conversation with us yesterday the spokesman for the Armenian Defense Ministry Seyran Shahsuvaryan told us that in Armenia the recruitment process is no news and that this had been permanently done. Shahsuvaryan downplayed the significance of such drills, saying that the Armenian Armed Forces have always called up reservists to verify their availability and make sure that “every duty-bound Armenian man knows his place and function in the military” in case of a large-scale armed conflict. The latest call-up comes amid rumors, stoked by some media, that the army has been put on high alert in anticipation of an Azerbaijani offensive. The Defense Ministry has categorically denied those reports. “We have the same stable situation that has existed during all these years,” he said. “It would be wrong to say that such incidents have increased or that something has changed on the frontline.” Chances of an all-out Armenian-Azerbaijani war are minimal at the moment, he added. Shahsuvaryan stressed at the same time that the Armenian military is taking Azerbaijani threats to solve the Karabakh conflict by force seriously. “We have been reinforcing our frontline fortifications,” he said. “We now have several lines of defense there. We are raising soldiers’ spirits, combat-readiness and so on. “We also keep the military hardware at the ready. It’s almost impossible today to find a single faulty unit of hardware at any military base.” “Azerbaijan makes such belligerent statements not only for internal consumption but also for the external audience, including Armenia and mediating states,” thinks the former foreign affairs minister of the NKR Arman Melikyan. It is no secret that there are material interests in the region specifically connected with the oil reserves of Azerbaijan. And Azerbaijan may use the possibility of resuming the war as a blackmailing tool for its “business partners” so that the latter in their turn pressure on Armenia. So Melikyan doesn’t exclude the possibility that the co-chairs may make a decision of starting a “blitz war” based on their interests. “I don’t exclude that Azerbaijan may cease the provision of oil for one or two months by promising a good compromise for its partners after a winning war. Thus, it is a soluble issue for them. It is another question that Azerbaijan cannot make such a decision on its own,” claims Melikyan. In the words of our interviewee the “blitz war” will be a short-term war with a guaranteed result. Moreover, he thinks that Azerbaijan cannot make such a decision without making preliminary deals. “I think all this is happening in the context of negotiation positions of Armenia and internal instability. I can’t exclude the war. The risk of war is pretty much the same as there has been for years now. But indeed the situation is tenser now than 5 or 10 years ago because of the reduction of the ability of Armenia to resist the war. The solution to this is making of new initiatives on part of Armenia and providing a new logic to the process of negotiations. Armenia should ultimately cease its practice of serving the interests of one group of the society at the expense of others. I mean the interests of the Diaspora and the Azerbaijani-Armenians. In the case of the first group their interests are being trampled by the Armenia-Turkey protocols and for the second case when discussing the issues of the refugees their interests are ignored because the talks proceed without their representation. If the Armenian side doesn’t bring up a new logic and recommendations then it should start to refuse the liberated territories this way or another. And indeed the Armenian side will try to do this with the hands of the NKR government,” says Melikyan. In the beginning of February Armenia’s defense minister Seyran Ohanyan visited France, where he had met with the defense minister of that country Erve Moren. A memorandum of cooperation was signed. A memorandum of cooperation was signed. This visit passed unnoticed and was considered among the regular meetings. Shahsuvaryan told us that this memorandum has an importance for education and experience exchange. And Armenia cannot have a deeper cooperation with France in this sector. Armenia has an agreement of military aid with Russia. And Armenia is a member of the Collective Security Treaty and France is a NATO member. These are contradictive structures to each other and theoretically Armenia cannot have military cooperation with NATO member states. But the governmental circles claim that regardless of the title of the memorandum it implies a military cooperation with France. Moreover, this was done in the awareness and agreement of Russia. This means that the risk of a war or at least a “blitz war” exists and our government is undertaking self-defense steps. Moreover, according to these rumors, this memorandum implies certain restraint efforts to Turkey so that the latter wouldn’t encourage Azerbaijan resume a war.
