“On the one hand, Russia’s recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia a year ago had a positive effect. On the other hand, it aroused the West’s serious concern over the possibility of Russia’s making a similar step toward Nagorno-Karabakh,” the political scientist Yervand Bozoyan told NEWS. am. As to what was Nagorno-Karabakh’s benefit from discontinuing its participation in the Russia-initiated meetings of the leaders of unrecognized states, he said: “We all understand that Russia’s recognition of the two states was a response to the West’s recognition of Kosovo. By taking that step Russia also prevented Georgia’s integration into the Western agencies, including NATO, as NATO is most cautious over the integration of states having territorial problems. In fact, Abkahzis and Ossets received that &‘present’ from Russia as a result of those geopolitical processes,” Bozoyan said.

As regards Nagorno-Karabakh, the expert said that “it would be most dangerous if the Armenian side showed one-way orientation – either to Russia or to the West – as we must be interested in [Nagorno-Karabakh] being recognized by both Russia and the West.” Bozoyan is sure that the precedents set in Kosovo or Abkhazia do not hold good for Nagorno-Karabakh. “Kosovo was explicitly West-oriented, while Abkhazia and South Ossetia were explicitly Russia-oriented. As regards Nagorno-Karabakh, if we show explicit orientation to one of the sides, we may encounter serious problems,” said Bozoyan. He believes Russia is not considering Nagorno-Karabakh from the same aspect as Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russia is demonstrating it recognized those states because of Georgia’s Western orientation.

Bozoyan referred to RF Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who stated that the Nagorno-Karabakh problem is radically different from the Abkhazian and South Ossetian ones, as no actual aggression has been committed against Nagorno-Karabakh. “That is, Russia does not want to worsen its relations with Azerbaijan, making the following reservation: if Azerbaijan does not change its orientation in the West’s favor, Russia will not show the same attitude to the Nagorno-Karabakh problem as to the Abkhazian and South Ossetian ones,” the expert said.