Zhamanak: War over Karabakh inevitable
The paper has interviewed David Shahnazaryan, an expert from the Yerevan-based Regional Studies Center.
Mr Shahnazaryan, the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan held their second meeting after the four-day war in April. This time, it was of course the Russian Federation’s initiative, with the US and French co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group being invited only at the end. There were initially concerns that the process might run parallel with, and even counter to, the Vienna [summit], but the official statement released later affirmed the desire to remain committed to the Vienna process. Meantime, it was stated that the process would only add value to the OSCE framework. What are your impressions and evaluations? What were the benefits of the meeting?
It is important to point to two very important developments that occurred literally days before of the meeting. First, Russian official circles declared that the country had started the delivery of the the second batch of offensive weapons to Azerbaijan. Then a statement was issued just three or four days ahead of the talks to confirm that the Russian Federation had finished the delivery of T-90 tanks to Azerbaijan. Those are modern tanks which we do not have in Armenia. Hence, no wonder that all this is being declared just in the run-up to the meeting. Those are official statements.
Meantime, no statement is available as to the weapons' supply to Armenia for the US $200 million loan.
What I have heard from reliable sources is that Armenia has been officially asked to forget about it. Another official statement was issued by the OSCE to say that the organization in question has absolutely nothing to do with the meeting. It was an unprecedented statement, as meetings of the kind had been held also before. Remember the talks in Sochi, for example. I evaluate the meeting from two angles: one the one hand, it was really good given that the Lavrov document, so to speak, was not put on the negotiating table. [Russian Foreign Minister Sergey] Lavrov, i.e. – the Russian plan, proposed the deployment of Russian peacekeepers, which is to say, armed forces. That plan was blocked in essence during the Vienna talks where the initiator was the United States. So what really happened? After the meeting in Vienna, no serious violations were actually observed along the Line of Contact, as the US had practically undertaken the responsibility of not escalating more tension. That’s a fact, be it though not legally worded. Russia can be said to have undertaken that commitment now.
… Azerbaijan won’t change its attitude. What happened in April – and I have repeatedly stated it – was in point of fact a joint Azerbaijani-Russian undertaking intended to bring Lavrov plan into action.
Instead we saw Lavrov sitting next to Serzh Sargsyan?
The Nagorno-Karabakh problem and the related developments have to be considered in the context of the US-Russia relations. Hence, we need to be ready for a Russian attempt to put the Lavrov plan into practice through Azerbaijan. So to avoid the April scenario and not to be taken aback this time, we need to avoid preparing for the 'previous wars'. The April events came to prove that we were getting prepared for the wars specific to the 1990s. I think that clashes and a new round of war will be inevitable both politically and in a military sense, as well as geopolitically. Also, after the April war, the society developed an understanding of two very simple truths: that Russia is not our friend to say the least, and that the April war directly stems from the September 3, 2014 decision [President Serzh Sargsyan’s statement expressing Armenia’s willingness to join the Russia-led common economic bloc].
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