SERGEY MARKOV: WAR IS QUITE POSSIBLE IN NAGORNO KARABAKH ISSUE

PanARMENIAN.Net
03.08.2007 14:27 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Conditionally speaking, Russia’s stance in the
Nagorno Karabakh conflict may be viewed in 60-40 correlation, which
means that Moscow supports Yerevan more, Russian politician and member
of the RF Public Chamber Sergey Markov stated. Simultaneously Russia
tries to keep the status quo -not to break the reached positives. "If
we plunge this region into a full-scale war, everybody will suffer
from it. The Russian Federation realizes this danger. Moscow builds his
whole policy proceeding from the following principle -the main thing is
not to harm. So, Azerbaijan is mistaken by considering Russia’s stance
in this issue as pro-Armenian. Of course, Russia listens to Armenia
more attentively, since Yerevan participates in projects initiated
by RF, for example, the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization).

And Azerbaijan does just the opposite by drawing into an anti-Russian
project, GUAM. Baku pushes Russia making him support Armenia more,
in 70-30 correlation," he underlined.

At the same time Sergey Markov said Russia will not change anything in
his stance on Karabakh yet. He added, gradually as far as Azerbaijan’s
economic growth continues and the gap between Baku and Yerevan becomes
larger the Azeri authorities will fall under temptation to go to
the forceful solution of the Karabakh conflict and will make such an
attempt. "So, war is quite possible in the Nagorno Karabakh issue.

We do not know yet how the problem will be resolved and what the
result will be. At least we see that Azerbaijan’s economic predominance
over Armenia constantly increases and after some time it will become
tremendous. Though, from the other hand Armenians continue to assure
that they know how to fight and will always be head and shoulders
above. In any case, I think after Azerbaijan accumulates enough
resources, some politicians will occur who would like to use those
resources to settle the issue forcefully.

Moscow’s stance will depend on Russia’s relations with Azerbaijan
and Armenia at the moment," the Russian political scientist stated.

Answering the question if it is possible to say that Armenia can
rely on Russia’s assistance in any case, Sergey Markov underscored,
"It is difficult to say yet. Azerbaijan has not fallen into the pit
of anti-Russian forces," Baku based "Echo" newspaper reports.