Author: Jagharian Tania

The Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Artsakh announced that there is an increase in training flights of Azerbaijani drones and military aviation along the front line, which often violate the established flight zone.

Within the so-called elevator diplomacy, Azerbaijan maintained a ceasefire on the border for some time, but it did not last long. A few days ago, an Armenian soldier was killed on the border of Artsakh, and the Azerbaijani armed forces started firing larger-caliber weapons in the direction of Armenian positions.

All this is happening in the conditions of Turkish-Azerbaijani military exercises in Nakhichevan. In this way, Baku is trying once again to use the threat of force to achieve unilateral concessions from the Armenian side on the Karabakh issue.

The Armenian parties have clearly stated that they are not going to cede territories, that is, the Madrid principles, on which the negotiations have been going on in recent years, are no longer relevant.

However, the co-chairs sent a clear message to Yerevan that Artsakh’s return to the negotiation table is impossible at the moment due to Baku’s uncompromising position. In order not to bring the issue to a dead end, RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has to continue the negotiations in the RA-Azerbaijan format, meeting with the president Ilham Aliyev: If the negotiations break down, the alternative is a full-scale war, which is not in the interest of the superpowers, including the Minsk Group member Russia, the United States and France.

A full-scale war in Karabakh will cross the East-West energy-transport logistics, the Southern Gaza Corridor, which involves the delivery of Caspian energy carriers to Europe, bypassing the Russian Federation. A large-scale war that would disrupt the creation of that energy-transport corridor bypassing Russia is not in the USA’s interest.

As for the Russian Federation, Moscow is creating close economic, energy and transport ties with Azerbaijan, besides, the military-technical cooperation is also at a high level. Russia does not want the destabilization of its southern neighbor, Azerbaijan, which will also affect Russia’s North Caucasus. Parallel to that, RA is Russia’s number one strategic ally in the South Caucasus, a CSTO member ally, which means that in case of Azerbaijani aggression against RA, Russian troops must stand by RA and the Armenian people.

However, in geopolitics there is the so-called “black swan” (“чёрный лебедь”) phenomenon, that is, when unforeseen developments occur that change the entire geopolitical landscape. The April 2016 four-day war was also such a “black swan”. No one predicted such a military operation by Azerbaijan. Baku, finding the right time and the gaps in the Armenian positions and the vanguard, went on the attack and recorded success. Baku occupied certain positions in the north of Artsakh and the Lele Tepe hill in the south of Artsakh. They are springboards for a future full-scale war against Artsakh.

Azerbaijan can get Turkey’s support and, taking advantage of the tense internal political developments in Armenia, including the RA-Artsakh contradictions, make a miscalculation, hoping that the Armenian parties are busy fighting each other and go on the offensive without receiving the silent consent or neutral position of the superpowers.

RA and Artsakh should beware of Baku’s unpredictable behavior, which may be based on miscalculations: internal political tension in RA, pre-election situation in Artsakh and internal contradictions between Artsakh elites and certain problems observed in Armenian-Russian relations.

The EU considers RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s statement about the judicial system as a firm commitment to reforms. Head of the European Union Delegation to Armenia, Ambassador Pyotr Svitalsky announced this in a conversation with journalists.

He noted that they did not have the opportunity to discuss the issue in detail with the Armenian government, the Minister of Justice or other people, but what the Prime Minister mentioned is very clear for the EU.

“It is a very clear and very strong commitment to justice reform. The Minister of Justice spoke about vetting, presenting the Albanian model. The European Union worked closely with the Albanian government to develop the so-called Albanian model, and today that vetting model is supported by the European Union. This is an opportunity for the Armenian side to take into account,” Svitalsky noted.

According to him, if the Armenian government wants to go this way, the EU is ready to support it. But it hasn’t been discussed yet.

“The EU believes that reforms in the field of justice in Armenia are of vital importance from the point of view of the future. I can say that deep and comprehensive justice reforms are essential for your future for a number of reasons, but the first reason is that the Armenian people do not trust the courts. In the past years, the European Union financially supported the conduct of independent studies, which documented that too many Armenians do not trust the courts.

And we published the partnership report today, you can find there chapters that refer to other structures, in which it is also mentioned that Armenia has a problem. too many people don’t trust the courts. Therefore, you need reforms to restore public confidence. We believe that the reforms should be carried out respecting the Constitution, Armenia’s international commitments, including from the point of view of membership in the Council of Europe, respecting our joint commitments, in particular, regarding reforms in the field of justice,” the ambassador noted.

Pyotr Svitalsky added: “We are ready to support Armenia for deep and comprehensive reforms in the field of justice, with technical or advisory support, and fairly extensive financial support. We strongly support the commitments undertaken by the Prime Minister to implement reforms in the justice sector. This is an extremely serious commitment. We never impose anything, but the Armenian government should know that it can count on our support during the implementation of these reforms, based on these very principles. The EU encourages the RA government to develop reforms on the basis of an inclusive dialogue with all interested parties.”