Armenian political expert: Russia was going ‘to cede’ Nagorno-Karabakh
to Azerbaijan

2009-01-24 14:24:00

ArmInfo. Russian was going "to cede" Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan,
independent analyst Igor Muradyan told journalists, Saturday.

"The token money in our Russian ‘friends” intention was the Azeri gas,
as well as the speculation around possible construction of Nabucco gas
pipeline. This failed to happen thanks to a lucky
accident: President Serzh Sargsyan simply understood if he signed the
document he was offered, he would cease being the Armenian president",-
Muradyan said.

According to the expert, at the same time Moscow’s American partners
disturbed Medvedev when the latter was going to impose the document on
Sargsyan. "We simply realized at a critical moment that there is not a
single pressure mechanism to make us cede Karabakh to Azerbaijan or
anybody else", the analyst said.

Muradyan thinks that the Russian president is practically surrounded by
gas and oil traders, as well as by Azeri lobbyists. However, in the
current situation it is not so easy to "sell" Karabakh to Azerbaijan,
and here a great role belongs to the position of the USA, which
reinforces its presence in the region together with the UK.

"This has flattened Turkey and Russia which are trying to find points
of coincidence at any price as they both realize that they are unable
to resist the USA separately. They failed to sell Karabakh, so nobody
is able to make us abandon our own territory",- Muradyan concluded.