– Did the US State Secretary Hillary Clinton’s visit to the region bring any change or clarification to the issue of Karabakh conflict?
– No change. Negotiations will continue and I do not imagine suspension of the work of the OSCE Minsk Group or resignation from the group on the part of either Armenia or Azerbaijan. The negotiations will continue approximately with the same format as they have been so far. Also I think there will be shootings at the borderline from time to time.
– Hillary Clinton made an announcement in Baku saying that a new package of solutions would be offered to the parties during the meeting of the Armenian and Azeri foreign ministers in Paris on June 18. What will be the difference of the new proposed solutions with the Principles of Madrid?
– There will be no difference. The word of a politician is a tool. What is the difference between a politician and political scientist? There can be good or bad political scientists or politicians, but their functions are different. A political scientist’s goal is to understand the essence of an issue, analyze it and communicate so that a scientist, for example, can use it for scientific purposes, or a journalist can use in media publications. The job of a politician is totally different. Clinton does not have to forecast what is going to happen. She does not have to tell the truth or give estimations. Thus, the word is a tool for a politician to drive a process. A politician’s goal is to influence on a process. What does she want to offer? Does she want to say in Baku that a meeting will take place in Paris on the 18th but nothing serious will happen? She cannot say such thing. The international community and the Minsk Group specifically (including the US as a co-chair) do not want the solution of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict because currently there is no political opportunity for settlement of the conflict. In fact the Minsk Group as two goals such as making sure the communication between the parties continues (i.e. foreign ministers and/or presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan continue to meet) and continue the process within the frames of the Minsk Group. The group’s goal also is to make sure those contacts between the conflicting parties also involve international participants, i.e. it should include not only Armenia and Azerbaijan but Russia, France and America as well. In order to do these things there need to be meetings, announcements and demonstration of optimism, which should be done by the people involved in this process. I remember the activities of the Minsk Group since its foundation in 1992 and during these 20 years their all announcements concerning the conflict have been optimistic.
– Aliyev’s administration has always used the issue of Karabakh conflict for the purpose of solving domestic problems, but it seems during the past several years his statements are going beyond the limits and there are more often diversion acts committed by the Azeri army. Azerbaijan has executed an armament purchase agreement with Israel, which exceeds one billion dollars. Does this mean that Azerbaijan is getting ready for a war as it has this external factor of support?
– The shootings at the border have nothing to do with resumption of a new war. Diversion attacks are means of political blackmailing for the purpose of influencing on external powers. The militant statements on part of Azerbaijan were getting more intensive at some point, and there was time that these statements stopped working, thus they decided to continue the tactics with diversion attacks. I totally agree with your statement that the issue of Krabakh is a tool for their inner issues but with those attacks Azerbaijan wants to influence the international community through blackmailing. That is why those incidents happened during Clinton’s visit. What did they need to do that? They simply needed 10 or 20 soldiers, weapons and a grenade. What are the risks for Azerbaijan in those actions? Usually after such incidents Azerbaijan has more human losses than Armenia, but human losses is not a loss for Azerbaijan; it doesn’t make a difference for them if 5, 10 or 20 people die. The ordinary citizens of Azerbaijan will not know about it, thus in fact Azerbaijan does not have much risk. What was the benefit? Hillary Clinton did not speak about the human rights and other violations, including intimidation on the opposition and other concerns in Azerbaijan during her visit to that country. What does Azerbaijan need to start a war? Army drafting, heavy military armaments, rockets, new army officers, huge reserves of armaments, human resources and billions. What are the risks? Bad financial situation just in two hours after resumption of war (it will first of all affect the Baku-Tbilisi-Jeyhan pipeline), a possibility of rocket attacks in answer to their attacks and no chance for victory. The war will last only 5-7 days, after which it will stop. These several days will never be enough for Azerbaijan to reach their goal. Of course they may collapse a part of Nagorno Karabakh Republic to the level of the ground, but they will not benefit from it at all. Wars do not start like this. Even more, before wars militant statements do not become more active, but they become passive and shootings stop for a while.
– Following the border incidents there were people who said that Armenia should ask Russia to allocate small army headquarters at the borderline of Tavush region. May Russia use this opportunity and convince Armenia that CIS troops should be allocated at the border with Azerbaijan.
– No, I think this is not possible at this time.
– What scenarios may happen in the near future concerning the conflict of Karabakh and regional security?
– In the near future visible political processes there will be no changes. The issue of Karabakh will stay in the same status approximately as it is now. The relations between Russia and Georgia will stay the same. Azerbaijan will continue this behavior and the negotiations will continue in the same manner and there will be no significant changes during the coming 2-3 years. Turkey will continue implementing the same policy in the region, at least till 2014.
Aram Sargsyan