YEREVAN. – There are no preconditions for settling the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, since Azerbaijan is ready neither for holding talks nor making concessions.

Former Defense Minister of Armenia, Vagharshak Harutyunyan, said the aforementioned at a press conference on Monday. He stated this commenting on Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s announcement that the Karabakh peace process needs to be intensified.

“The conflict must be resolved by way of either negotiations or war, for which Azerbaijan is not ready.

“The third option for the solution is that the superpowers need to start a process and force the parties [to the conflict] to make concessions; but this is not beneficial for the superpowers.

“Consequently, these three forms likewise will not work in the case of Armenia and Karabakh, [and] will not create preconditions for conflict resolution,” said the ex-defense minister of Armenia.

Harutyunyan expressed the view that Lavrov’s aforesaid statement means Russia wants to resolve this conflict.

“Because it is written in their doctrine that the conflicts near Russia’s border are a threat to their country.

“Russia wants its peacekeeping forces to be deployed in the region; but this is inconvenient for Azerbaijan.

“Armenia needs to make a pro-Armenian solution to the conflict,” he noted.

In the former defense minister’s words, Azerbaijan will not start a war, since this is not in the best interest of itself and the superpowers.

“Armenia is a CSTO member; there is a Russian [military] base here. On the other hand, Azerbaijan has an agreement with Turkey, a NATO member state,” stressed Vagharshak Harutyunyan. “If it starts a war, this will lead to a Russia-NATO-CSTO conflict, and these are nuclear superpowers that steer clear of a conflict.”