ARMINFO News Agency, Armenia
 Wednesday


Forecast: The alternation of diplomacy with military trials in order
to hold negotiations on the Karabakh agreements is inevitable

Yerevan May 24

David Stepanyan. As long as the parties to the Karabakh conflict are
allowed to check each other for strength on the lines of contact, the
diplomatic round on Karabakh intends to alternate with becoming an
additional tool to persuade a negotiating partner and new military
charges. Russian analyst Sergei Markedonov expressed such an opinion
to ArmInfo.

The second half of May was characterized by a significant increase in
tension on the Karabakh-Azerbaijan contact line. The Azerbaijani
military controlled missile damaged the air defense missile system
"Osa" of the NKR Defense Army. On May 18, the OSCE Minsk Group
co-chairs stated in their statement that on May 15 the Azerbaijani
Armed Forces fired a missile through the contact line of the sides. On
May 16 and 17, the Armenian military responded with mortar fire.

"It is interesting that Baku does not seek to silence the fact of
shelling on May 15 from its side, trying to legitimize it with the
threat that the Armenian "Osa" could represent. At the same time,
Azerbaijan traditionally actualizes the problem of intolerance of the
status quo, the need for de-occupation, dismissing the issue on the
referendum on determining the status of Nagorno-Karabakh," he said.

In the opinion of the analyst, thus, the next aggravation of the
situation of fundamental novelty did not bring. And the dynamic status
quo, in which the negotiation process is replaced by a new escalation,
without slipping into a full-scale war, remains. At the same time, he
notes that after May 15-17, the negotiating pace was shot down, and
according to Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova, "it
is not necessary to announce meetings and continue contacts."

Noting the regular nature of the escalation of diplomatic rounds,
Markedonov stressed the impossibility of ordering the peace process in
such an alternation. According to him, any new aggravation takes time
to return to dialogue, however, the new dialogue round has no further
continuation, and it is impossible to consolidate existing agreements
with something more than a promise of a new meeting.

The reason for such fluctuations Markedonov justifies by the
unwillingness of the parties to serious compromises, assessing their
appeal to the updated Madrid principles as unimportant. In this light,
the analyst notes that the regional visit of the co-chairs of the OSCE
Minsk Group, announced in June-early July, is likely to take place,
unless there is another sharp escalation.