“It has become obvious lately that the OSCE Minsk Group for the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict are trying to persuade the two Armenian sides to accept the Madrid Principles, which are actually a repeat of the settlement plan worked out by the Bolsheviks in 1920s, when the 11^th army seized Nagorno-Karabakh. The Bolshevik authorities viewed Nagorno-Karabakh as a disputed territory whose fate was to be decided later, by means of talks or a plebiscite. What really happened? Nagorno-Karabakh was made part of Azerbaijan, with no talks or plebiscite ever held in the region. In determining Nagorno-Karabakh’s status in 1920s, Soviet Russia did not observe an all-important principle – nations’ right to self-determination,” said Doctor of Philosophy, Professor Sergey Sargsyan.

“The USSR leader assumed a similar attitude in 1988-1991, which resulted in a 3-year bloody war Azerbaijan unleashed against Nagorno-Karabakh. That war claimed tens of thousands of lives on both sides. By sacrificing their best sons’ lives the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh defended their freedom in that aggressive war,” Sargsyan said.

The security of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) is not to be discussed and “signing any document under pressure will inevitably result in a war in the region, as the Azerbaijani leaders will create intolerable conditions for the Armenian population in the NKR.”

As regards official Baku’s warlike statements, Professor Sargsyan said: “It is not difficult to predict that new hostilities will turn the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas main into pyre. The Karabakh Armenians have an extensive experience of guerrilla warfare, do they not? A new war, if unleashed by Azerbaijan against the NKR and Armenia, will last for many years – it will not be a Blitzkrieg as the Aliyev clan plans. In any case Azerbaijan will lose that war as well. The result will be Azerbaijan’s return of the Nagorno-Karabakh’s territories occupied during the first war, overthrow of the Aliyev regime, destruction of the oil and communication sectors of Azerbaijan’s economy and other losses.”

Professor Sargsyan believes that a new war between Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh would cause a political chaos, which would undermine the fragile peace the South Caucasus and create favorable conditions for Georgia’s war with South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

“Russia — whether she liked it or not — would be involved in a long-lasting war with Georgia. I think that war would be radically different from the war last August. Its scenario will resemble that of the Vietnam War, with some differences: Russia would wage the war at its southern borders, with not only hot spots, but also terrorists intensifying their activities there,” the Professor said.

As regards the “gas for Karabakh” formula being discussed by some circles, Sergey Sargsyan said: “The ‘surrender’ of Karabakh (if we can use such terms at all) does not in any way meet Russia’s interests, as such an agreement would run counter to the logical development of political processes. Such a step would be tantamount to Russia’s political and geopolitical suicide. Russia is certainly well aware of that – after the last Armenians have been driven out of Karabakh, Russia’s presence in the South, and later in the North, Caucasus will come to its end. On the other hand, that would cause resumption of hostilities with Georgia.”

The Professor pointed out that present top-level Armenian-Azerbaijani meetings do not at all reflect the essence of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the NKR and Azerbaijan being the principal parties to it.

“Without Nagorno-Karabakh being immediately involved in the negotiations as a party to the conflict, and its interests, rights and duties considered, the main problem – the country’s status – is impossible to solve. Alas, no progress has ever been made in this matter. No tendency to a change in the format of negotiations can be observed,” Professor Sargsyan said.

The settlement scheme provided by the Madrid Principles is “nothing but delayed deterioration under the pretext of empty talk bout allegedly fair combination of the principles of territorial integrity and nations’ right to self-determination.”

“More than a hundred years of the Armenian people’s experience of placing hopes on the great powers’ diplomacy — London Convention 1871, Treaty of San Stefano, 1878, Congress of Berlin, 1878, Treaty of Sèvres, 1920, Treaty of Kars, 1921, Treaty of Lausanne, 1923, etc.. — has shown that diplomacy did not prevent tragedies. Rather it brought massacre, pogroms and refugees to the Armenian people. The paradox is that the naïve Armenian people goes on hoping for ‘outward favor’. Our people think that modern day diplomats and politicians are persons of higher moral standards than their fathers. The Armenian people should have relied on its own strength, looking for allies and friends among its sons. Over centuries no one has been able to break the freedom-loving spirit of the Karabakh people – neither Yazdegerd II nor Genghis Khan, or Tamerlane or Stalin or Gorbachev, many others. I think no one is able to do it now. This time, the courage and inflexible willpower of freedom-loving Karabakh Armenians and of the entire Armenian people, in cooperation with the leaders, will thwart the poorly camouflaged plans of great powers,” Professor Sergey Sargsyan concluded.