There is no prospect for a “big bang” peace agreement on Karabakh or plausible breakthrough after a decade of intensive militarised competition and a major escalation in April 2016, editor of Caucasus Survey Laurence Broers told Armenian News-NEWS.am.

“None of the basic structural incompatibilities between Armenian and Azerbaijani visions of the future of Nagorno Karabakh have changed. This means that any talk of breakthroughs is misguided and possibly even dangerous,” Broers, associate fellow at the Chatham House, said when asked whether there is a change in Armenia-Azerbaijan relations and one can expect any breakthrough.

The expert does not expect breakthrough and believes it is important to move away from this kind of thinking. He is confident that the April 2016 war showed that “the parties are far from ready for a sustained war”, and coercion as a strategy gave no results.

However, Broers points to an opportunity for the conflict parties to open up some political space for non-violent alternatives.

“There are numerous new faces in the wider peace process, from Armenia’s new leadership to a new leader of the Karabakh Azerbaijani community. I am sure that we will soon see changes in the de facto leadership in Nagorny Karabakh as well. Leadership turnover allows for prior strategies to be reconsidered, but of course on its own it is not enough. Small steps in the direction of increased people to people contacts, against a backdrop of a long-term reduction in Line of Contact tensions would be a realistic level of ambition in the present conjuncture,” he said.