In an interview with Armenian-News-NEWS.am, expert on the Middle East and Caucasus Stanislav Tarasov said the predictions that the escalation on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border will become a large-scale war are unsubstantiated. He recalled that Russia, Iran and the OSCE Minsk Group have expressed the willingness to be mediators amid the escalation on the border, but this doesn’t satisfy President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev.

“In the case of negotiations over the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs act as ambassadors. The April war showed that, in any case, Russia is specifically involved when the situation escalates. After the events in April 2016, Putin personally participated in stopping the escalation through the agreements reached in Vienna and Saint Petersburg. Later, Ilham Aliyev and Nikol Pashinyan removed this from the agenda through combined efforts.

Pashinyan and Aliyev aren’t holding talks over baseline principles and are talking about certain humanitarian issues and the creation of an atmosphere of confidence, but this can’t be achieved through the efforts of only one side.

As far as the Armenian side is concerned, according to Tarasov, Armenia took advantage of the fact that the Azerbaijani UAZ truck had crossed the border. Touching upon the official Ankara’s statements on its willingness to provide military aid to Azerbaijan, Tarasov stated that even though international organizations have issued statements calling on ceasefire, Turkey has decided to pour oil on the fire with provocative statements. He added that even if a war breaks out, Azerbaijan will be the one responsible, regardless of everything. According to him, Turkey won’t get involved in the action and won’t hurt its ties with Russia. As for Azerbaijan, it won’t get into the conflict with Armenia alone. Besides that, Turkey is currently dealing with the issues in Syria, Iraq and Libya and trying to solve its domestic issues.