“It is true that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict – and Azerbaijan’s interests in general – appear to be overlooked in the text of the protocols. This is not too surprising from the perspective of the documents themselves, which outline principles of bilateral relations”, Director of Eurasian Strategy Project and Georgetown University professor Cory Welt stated in his interview with Day.Az. “It does seem strange given the promise of the Turkish leadership a few months ago that progress would have to be made on Nagorno-Karabakh before Turkey opened its border. We can only assume one of two things: either a secret agreement has already been concluded on Nagorno-Karabakh in which case we will hear more about it shortly, or-the Turkish government is going to allow parliament to hold out for concrete progress on Karabakh issue”, he said adding “This could lead to a positive outcome for Azerbaijan. The more Armenia – and Armenian society – is convinced that it is on the brink of normal relations with Turkey, the more likely it is that Yerevan will be further encouraged to take steps to resolve the conflict”

“Turkish recognition of the Armenian genocide is the paramount concern may fear that normalization of relations with Turkey will further reduce the incentive for Turkey to ever recognize the genocide, and also dampen the incentive of countries like the United States to also push for official recognition”, Welt sated.

As commenting on military settlement of the Karabakh conflict, American expert said: “It is very difficult for me to predict that Azerbaijan might pursue a military resolution to the conflict after the Russia-Georgia war. Before the war, the Azerbaijani government might have convinced itself that such a solution was possible, but now it should be clear that Russia, as Armenia’s military ally, would be compelled to come to Armenia’s defense in the event of hostilities”.