ARMENIA ‘TO STRIKE AT CIVILIAN TARGETS’ TO PROVOKE RETALIATION
news.az
May 10 2011
Azerbaijan
News.Az interviews political scientist Rasim Musabeyov, a non-partisan
member of parliament.
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said recently that Azerbaijan is
protracting resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and that Baku
is waiting for the right time to begin a new military game. Why did
Armenia make the accusation against Azerbaijan now?
Yerevan is aiming to obtain one part of the occupied lands of
Azerbaijan in exchange for the liberation of another part. Serzh
Sargsyan cannot say this outright because it would constitute both
a blatant and flagrant violation of international law and a call to
recognize Armenia’s right to seize the land of other states.
That is why Armenia is beginning to create confusion. Anyway,
when Armenia begins to talk that way, no-one listens, and in this
case Sargsyan is simply talking nonsense, if he thinks that he can
convince anyone.
May the “sniper war” between Azerbaijan and Armenia lead to large-scale
military hostilities?
If you look in the archives about the numerous cases of ceasefire
violations, skirmishes between the parties and loss of life, we can
see that there has always been such a “war” on the front line.
There have been even more dangerous incidents involving the
penetration of military intelligence, and, on the other hand, numerous
casualties. Therefore, I would not dramatize the situation. However,
the fact is that there is no peace and these shootings may lead to
large-scale fighting at any time.
I believe the background to the contact line between the troops
should serve as a sharp reminder to those countries that the current
occupation of Azerbaijani land cannot continue any longer and that
unacceptable solutions cannot be imposed on Azerbaijan involving the
infringement of its territorial integrity.
May third countries engage in a new Karabakh war?
I think that these states will do anything to prevent the conflict
reaching a “hot phase” and, if it does, they will do everything to
ensure that it remains local and to stop it as soon as possible.
Therefore, it is hypothetical that Russia and Turkey will get
involved in this conflict. The Armenians are frightened about this
as they understand that they will not be able to withstand fairly
long military confrontation with Azerbaijan in view of the sharp
differences in demographic and economic spheres.
Given that Armenia’s transport communication is sufficiently
vulnerable, it will even be difficult for them to get arms to the
front. In this regard, we can state that Armenia itself plans to play
some sort of a game.
Armenia plans to strike at civilian targets and Azerbaijan’s oil
infrastructure in order to provoke retaliation, and then turn to
Russia for help and require compliance with the military agreement
between Yerevan and Moscow.
The essence of the prevention of war is to avoid this scenario, but
at the same time it is a reality that Azerbaijan has strengthened
both economically and militarily and the geopolitical weight of
the country has increased against the backdrop of the demographic,
economic and military downturn in Armenia.
The US ambassador to Azerbaijan, Matthew Bryza, said recently that the
OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs were developing new proposals to solve the
Karabakh conflict which would include the principles of territorial
integrity and self-determination. In what way can these principles
be united? Will they preserve Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity?
Bryza said nothing new. Neither of these principles precludes the
other. The international principle of self-determination of peoples
does not provide for secession from a state. In other words, the
right of nations to self-determination does not deny the principle
of maintaining territorial integrity.
From: A. Papazian