Author: Garnik Tadevosian

ArmInfo.The current Armenian-Azerbaijani problems are not limited to Armenia, Azerbaijan or even the South Caucasus. They are a small element of the Big Game  component.  Hrachya Arzumanyan, an expert on national security and  defense issues, Doctor of Political Sciences, expressed a similar  opinion to ArmInfo.

“One can come to such a conclusion even with a superficial analysis.  And I absolutely do not understand for what reasons, based on what  realities, our negotiators consider themselves able to separate the  problem of Artsakh from the “Armenian issue.” The latter, by the way,  has not gone away and continues remain part of the international  agenda. But in Yerevan, for some reason, they think that it can be  separated from the processes taking place in the Greater Middle  East,” he stressed.

Meanwhile, according to Arzumanyan, geopolitical realities leave  absolutely no room for the realization of Armenian bureaucratic  dreams, namely, to achieve peace with excessively aggressive  neighbors in the conditions of the transformation of all surrounding  regions into a theater of military operations, albeit with varying  degrees of intensity.

The expert considers the latest murder of an Armenian soldier, as  well as Aliyev’s threats, as a continuation of the logic of  Azerbaijan’s military pressure policy on Armenia over the past two  decades. And the fact that Yerevan stubbornly tries not to understand  the essence of this policy, preferring to be in a state of hopes for  peace separated from the realities, in his opinion, is exclusively   Yerevan’s problem.

Referring directly to the Artsakh case of the Armenian-Azerbaijani  conflicts, the expert noted that there is no lowering of the  international bar on the issue of the status of Artsakh, and there  has not been. Moreover, after the peculiar resolution of the Artsakh  problem by Russia and Turkey in the fall of 2020, it was the  geopolitical processes performed by other international players that  demonstrated completely different realities. The realities from  which, according to Arzumanyan, Putin and Erdogan were cut off in  their assessments of the situation. Realities within which it  suddenly became clear that neither the problem of Artsakh nor the  “Armenian issue” is closed, and Artsakh is still waiting for its  status.

“And it is precisely within the framework of these geopolitical  realities that Ankara, Moscow and, accordingly, Baku are forced to  act. Hence, Aliyev’s next manifestations of the threat of the use of  force, and its use in the form of the murder of our serviceman. They  do so in order to persuade Yerevan to abandon the approaches that the  international community is already ready to form and accept, and  which have nothing in common with the approaches of Turkey and the  Russian Federation,” the expert summed up.

ArmInfo.Taking into account the absence of any objective reasons for Baku to keep the Armenian population of Artsakh in Artsakh, I personally doubt the possibility  of signing a peace treaty with Yerevan. A similar opinion was  expressed to ArmInfo by a historical sociologist, publicist, and  professor at the New York University at Abu Dhabi Georgi Derluguian.

“Taking into account the obviousness of Baku’s intentions, the goal  of Yerevan, the goal of all Armenians should be to oppose these plans  through diplomacy, politics, propaganda, and, if necessary, the army  and the talks, in particular the Yerevan talks on a peace agreement  with Baku, probably refer to this. I think they are part of a  strategy to drag out the negotiations, the process as a whole, with  the ultimate goal of avoiding a direct military conflict,” he  stressed.

In the professor’s opinion, Europe, in principle, shares this  approach of Yerevan. And it is the EU’s desire to avoid any process  in the South Caucasus as a whole that Brussels, in its turn, is also  interested in long negotiations, delaying the process. According to  Derluguian’s forecasts, the conflict around Artsakh may become part  of the overall geopolitical settlement package in a number of  regions, but only after the Ukrainian settlement, or, more precisely,  Moscow’s renunciation of its gains in Ukraine.

Assuming that the development of these settlement packages is already  underway, Derluguian considers delaying time in order to avoid making  specific decisions on Artsakh the most rational strategy for Armenia,  at least for the next year. Another important background factor in  Brussels’ policy in the Caucasus, the professor considers the fear of  losing Azerbaijan as a supplier of oil and gas in the face of a  growing need to avoid Russian gas in order to increase pressure on  Moscow.

“Nevertheless, given the kleptocratic clan nature of the Aliyev  regime, it will be quite easy to impose sanctions on him, first of  all, due to the fact that against the backdrop of Ukraine, public  opinion in the West has become much more active than a couple more  months ago. And politicians are forced to take this into account and  follow this. This fact in a certain way, in turn, ties the hands of  the Baku regime in the Armenian direction. Energy carriers are  important, but in response to any actions of Aliyev that will cause  horror in Europe, its leaders will simply have to take actions  against Azerbaijan, as they did against the Russian Federation,”  Derlugyan summed up.