The drivers in the current developments over the Karabakh peace process are more local, rather than are connected to the developments in the wider region, associate fellow at the Chatham House Laurence Broers believes.

He admits that since 2001 the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict has been consistently overshadowed by other global and regional problems, but is confident that the international actors can achieve little without local roots.

“First, the ‘four-day war demonstrated the limits to war readiness for all sides. Then the subsequent “spy scandal” in the Azerbaijani army in May 2017 also shows that institutional reforms in the military have their limits. Beyond that, the oil price has recovered relative to 2016, lessening the need for diversionary violence. And though territorial gains in April 2016 were very small, Baku now has a narrative that can be depicted as justifying the massive military expenditures of recent years.

For Armenia, the ‘Velvet Revolution’ has imposed a ‘reset’ on Armenian-Azerbaijani relations. It has challenged zero-sum thinking about the relationship between security and democracy, and the idea of moving away from the politics of the strongman and the garrison is a legitimate and collective goal. The idea of what ‘security’ means is evolving alongside an ambitious project to transform Armenia. De-escalation is essential to this agenda, and as a leader with a democratic mandate Nikol Pashinyan may be able to face down more hardline approaches,” Broers, editor of Caucasus Survey, said in an e-mail interview with Armenian News-NEWS.am.

The expert notes that it is only when outside actors see some local demand and capacity for peace that serious diplomatic energy will be allocated to the conflict.

Asked whether the Trump administration is not interested in the process or is rather passive as compared to the Obama administration, Broers said . With that said “in the person of Ambassador Andrew Schofer the United States has a fine envoy in place, who is no less interested or active than his predecessor Ambassador James Warlick.”

Broers believes that the leaders have to show they are not going to sign a hastily concocted ‘deal’ that suites their interests and need to reassure rightly skeptical Armenian and Azerbaijani citizenries that they do indeed have their interests at heart.

“That can happen through small but incremental steps to open up political space for alternatives to the militancy and coercion that have in recent years visibly failed to change the status quo. Economic confidence building measures, as noted by the Minsk Group co-Chairs in their statement last week, can be a part of that. But, this needs to go together with a different political discourse, and the lifting of constraints on people-to-people contacts.  ,” he said.