The opportunity was opened to restore the stalled talks between Yerevan and Baku, however, the window may close if the parties do not act, stated in  'Digging out of Deadlock in Nagorno-Karabakh' report published by the International Crisis Group.

According to the report, despite the fact that the parties are far apart in their positions, talks can help prevent a new escalation after many years of militarization and lay the foundation for a final settlement of the conflict. However, after the thaw, the relationship already shows signs of a freezing process. Thus, according to experts, Yerevan and Baku would be wise to act fast.

The experts of the International Crisis Group identify three issues, the positions on which the sides are farthest from each other since the end of hostilities in the 90s.

"The first involves the fate of territories adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijanis were forced to flee these areas during the war," the source noted.

According to the ICG, "one option to nurture conditions for talks might be for Armenia to persuade Nagorno-Karabakh’s de facto authorities to suspend plans for new settlements and, in return, for Azerbaijan to pledge not to act on plans to pursue settlement-related complaints in international courts or impose further sanctions for a set period."

A second important issue concerns the composition and mandate of a potential international peacekeeping or monitoring mission. According to experts, "such a mission could help minimise violence, create conditions for a peace deal and monitor or enforce such a deal if and when one is reached."

"An OSCE HLPG was set up in the 1990s to plan for such missions but – in theabsence of progress in talks – has foundered. With the support of the parties, the OSCE could reinvigorate it and task it with a specific, time-delimited (perhaps one year) mandate to define a set of options. These could then form the basis for the parties’ discussions on such a mission," the source added.

The last question that experts of the group point out is the status of Karabakh. Noting the diametrical opposition of the parties on this issue, the ICG experts believe that, "given the sensitivity of the issue and the distance between the parties, any talks on status would likely have to start discreetly and semi-formally."

Experts conclude that all three issues have always been interconnected, which did not help in finding a solution. Thus, they suggest that the parties deal with one of the above problems. According to them, the parties could promise that any agreement reached "would be without prejudice to talks on other issues."

"If talks might make matters worse, their continued absence almost certainly will. Getting back to the table will be difficult but is the only way Armenia and Azerbaijan can start digging out of their deadlock," the report said.