Azernews.Az

By Abdul Kerimkhanov

Although much was expected from the new government of Armenia in the face of the Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who came to power after a velvet revolution last year’s April, there was no tangible positive change in the process of resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

On the contrary, the new leader of Armenia has already made a number of provocative statements that may seriously undermine the conflict resolution and even lead to new hostilities in the region.

The termination of negotiations on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is a harbinger of warfare, Georgian political observer Irina Jorbenadze said in an interview with Azernews. She added that it is unlikely that any country will assist Armenia in the potential war.

“If other countries will not help Armenia, it will certainly lose the war with Azerbaijan and Yerevan perfectly understands this situation,” she said.

Jorbenadze believes that the OSCE Minsk Group, which is tasked with the resolution of the conflict, is already playing a decorative role in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement.

She also emphasized that the Minsk Group turned into a “talking room” for delaying a radical denouement. For some time, she added, this could be considered as a positive moment, but not for the medium term.

"It would be more logical to transfer the negotiation framework to the trilateral Baku-Yerevan-Moscow format. However, not without a certain influence of Turkey and Iran," she stressed.

Answering the question, why sanctions are not imposed at the international level against Armenia, a state that discriminates the indigenous population of Nagorno-Karabakh, the expert mentioned that the reason is that the world politics has long and firmly adopted the practice of double and triple standards and this concerns not only Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Meanwhile, the confrontation between Armenians from Armenia itself and Karabakh Armenians is still growing due to the arrest of the former Armenian President Robert Kocharyan, representative of Karabakh Armenians. Commenting on Yerevan's ability to maintain the status quo in Nagorno-Karabakh, Jorbenadze said that this will largely depend on the processes that are taking place and will continue to take place between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.

"The higher the confrontational degree between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia is, the less chance the latter has for maintaining the status quo. If the two sides clash seriously, the entire negotiation process with Azerbaijan will radically change," she noted.

Jorbenadze believes that the final resolution of the conflict can either happen unexpectedly swiftly, or the negotiation process will be encouragingly activated and then will decline again. She also noted the importance of the political will of Russia and the level of its pressure on Armenia.

"There can’t be a real forecast for the terms of resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. This can happen spontaneously, through peace negotiations or without them," the expert concluded.

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Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94

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