Azerbaijan leads itself into deadlock by its military rhetoric and military preparations.
Director of the Institute of Diaspora Studies and Integration (Institute of CIS countries) Konstantin Zatulin said the aforementioned in an interview with Noyan Tapan newspaper.
In his words, apart from the distrust between the parties to the conflict, there is also another level of distrust: there is a lack of complete confidence between the Minsk Group Co-Chairs, which include Russia, U.S. and France. Although it seemed that exactly in Karabakh conflict the positions of these countries are closer than ever, since they do not support military solution, non-use of force and continuation of the negotiation process being an absolute imperative for them. Together with this, Azerbaijan constantly states about its readiness to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict by military means. In reality, Azerbaijan is certainly bluffing, since everyone understands that its current economic possibilities - oil and gas cushion – are vulnerable. Throwing everything into the scale of serious large-scale war, which will inevidently lead to the interference of external forces, will be a suicide, including for the Azerbaijani political regime,'' Zatulin noted.
''The peaceful settlement will make both sides to the conflict beneficiary parties. One side will receive the confirmation and recognition of the Nagorno-Karabakh independence, whereas the orther will get the territories. I think this settlement recipe in the emerged political and psychological atmoshpere can be dictated by superpowers. The conflicting parties realize that the compromise consists of exactly this, but they are not ready to agree with that due to domestic policy reasons,'' he noted.
In Zatulin's words, a destabilizing factor in this conflict is the interest of Turkey, which did Azerbaijan's bidding in the case related to the Armenian-Turkish protocols. ''Due to this story, the Azerbaijani authorities formed an illusion that they can manipulate Turkey, since all the powerful were behind the Armenian-Turkish protocols. Afterwards, Azerbaijan focused on Russia, thinking that the latter is more pliable and it will be possible to influence the opinion of the country's leadership. These efforts are exerted today as well: success has been achieved in individual cases, to which I also attribute my resignation from the post of the First Deputy Head of the [Russian State Duma] Committee for CIS Affairs and Ties with Compatriots in 2011. In 2010, I was declared persona non grata in Azerbaijan. Baku treats my speeches very fervently: for instance, blogger Bahram Batdiev, whom I don't know pesonally, is simply specializes in attacks in my address, commenting on each of my words. That would be sad if not funny,'' he added.
Zatulin also stressed that Russia understands the problem and all the responsibility for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement: ''Adhereing to priority ally relations with Armenia, it is trying to support good relations with Azerbaijan. Russia not only keeps Azerbaijan from creeping into an anti-Russian front, but also stems from the fact that good relations with Azerbaijan are eventually beneficial not only for itself but also Armenia, by keeping Azerbaijan away from rash acts. Unfortunately, this logic of Russia went through facings in April, when against the backdrop of dramatic deterioration of Russian-Turkish relations, Azerbaijan went to the length of military adventure.
As it is known, Russia is slammed in Armenia now for infatuating the 'hawks' in Azerbaijan by its military supplies. The balance might have indeed been disrupted. But it should be stressed that the entire responsibility for the April developments is born not by Russia, but Azerbaijan. Russia made conclusions, firstly by forcing to stop the military actions, and secondly through publicly announcing about its military supplies to Armenia, which are carried out on completely different terms– almost free of charge – than for Azerbaijan. Today Russian President exerts active efforts towards moving the Karabakh settlement off the dead center.''
