President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev is probably trying to suggest that Baku will finally leave the [OSCE] Minsk negotiation process and act as it considers necessary, that is, lead things to war.

Russian political analyst Alexander Khramchikhin told the aforementioned to Armenian News – NEWS.am correspondent, touching on Aliyev’s recent statement on the voting at PACE and the statement made by the OSCE Minsk Group prior to that.

According to him, Aliyev merely stated a fact but for the statement about Islamophobia. “The efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group are useless, since Armenia and Azerbaijan are in contrary positions and there is no way to bring them together. The OSCE Minsk Group has no resources to do this,” Khramchikhin said.

Responding to the question on whether this can be followed by certain steps on behalf of the OSCE Minsk Group, the political analyst said: “These countries can achieve nothing as long as the positions of Armenia and Azerbaijan remain mutually exclusive.”

Referring to Russia’s stance in case war breaks out, Khramchikhin noted: “I don’t see any means through which Russia or other OSCE Minsk Group countries can seriously influence both Armenia and Azerbaijan. Russia will urge to solve the conflict peacefully, as it used to do before, although in the present case the peaceful way of solving the conflict is to merely freeze it. Hence the current status quo and that’s all.”

Khramchikhin sees no peaceful ways to the conflict settlement. “There is no possibility to change the mutually exclusive positions of Armenia and Azerbaijan only unless a revolution takes place in one of these countries and authorities with entirely different positions come to power. But I can imagine such a possibility neither in Armenia nor in Azerbaijan. Regrettable as it may be, there is no other way to solve the conflict but another war,” the analyst concluded.   

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev today accused the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs of religious discrimination. Referring to the results of PACE voting and the calls of the mediators before the voting, Aliyev stated:  “I’m very sorry that the Minsk Group Co-Chairs, who should immediately deal with the given issue, strive not for its settlement, but conflict freezing. Their current activity is absolutely senseless. They not only refrain from pressing Armenia, but also protect it from possible problems.”