YEREVAN. – Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is still unsettled after the Soviet Union collapsed 20 years ago, says Thomas de Waal, Senior Associate at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“In the Karabakh dispute, a national Azerbaijani narrative is taking shape in a new, wealthy, self-confident nation that is less inclined to make compromises with the Armenians. At the same time, Armenians present the de-facto secession of Nagorno-Karabakh as a fact that has only to be ratified by history on the lines of Kosovo and South Sudan. Few points of convergence there,” he writes in his article titled “Challenging the Language of Estrangement in the Caucasus” posted on Eurasianet.org.

He recalls the statement on the Karabakh conflict at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) ministerial meeting in Vilnius, saying “declarations on the conflicts signally lack a “third narrative” that envisions a different future for the region, nor is this usually the task of formal diplomacy.”

“But if the ambassador-level co-chairs mediating the Karabakh conflict are not in the business of issuing soaring rhetoric about the value of peace, more senior officials from their governments should attempt the task,” he writes.