Category: 2017

The political leadership in Azerbaijan is trying to differentiate the impression of possibility of a new war with Armenia. The Americans continue to claim that Ilham Aliyev is not inclined for a war while his entourage prefers using large-scale military actions. Washington does not believe in this much and judging by the information about Azerbaijan, they have concluded that the present-day Azerbaijan is not determined enough. Who in Azerbaijan’s political elite might initiate a new war? Such initiatives in Azerbaijan are ruled out to a significant extent, if not fully. Azerbaijan is governed from the outside, and this is taken into account in the political circles of the West and Iran. Iran’s warning was made with consideration of intrigues in Turkey and partly in Russia. Currently Turkey, as before, is not interested in a big war in the Caucasus. It concerns Russia too. The two countries are interested in maintaining the military situation in the region but not in a big war. Many Armenian military officers do not have a substantial understanding of the war threat and continue to hope for Russia’s assistance including in terms of weapons supplies. Nonetheless, Russia’s actions are discussed by officers. Russia’s cynical behavior is becoming hostile and is not limited to large-scale supplies of weapons to Azerbaijan. Armenia has not been able to raise this issue before the Russians, nor internationally. What are the causes of such outrageous attitude to Armenia? First, the Armenian leadership was unable to restore the opinion of the Armenian public towards such cynical attitude by Russia. However, this is not the cause of the situation Armenia is in. Since independence Armenia has had a superficial attitude towards its own sovereignty, technically failing to conduct an equal policy on different big states and political and security blocs. As a result, the country depends heavily on Russia and has not been serious about NATO, the global security system. Currently the West is not interested in a war but there comes a time when the West may put forth the issue of failure of Russia’s regional policy, especially in terms of military conflicts. Azerbaijan understands this very well and is ready for the military adventure, a demonstrative action for a military strike on Armenia. Azerbaijan is aware that the Western community, NATO will not take serious action to intervene in the war in the South Caucasus unless Turkey takes part in it. Formerly NATO was intended to prevent the defeat of one of the Caucasian countries. Currently the setting is different, and Armenia must lose. This is not NATO’s strategic goal but such results would be the most favorable one for the alliance. For the time being NATO is trying to involve Armenia and Azerbaijan in its political and security programs, enabling them to increase the defense capability of their armed forces. The political component is important to the Caucasian countries, which supposes integration with NATO organizations. The participation of Armenia and Azerbaijan is titular for the time being, and the two countries do not express interest in close cooperation with NATO. It should be noted that Azerbaijan is currently better off than Armenia. Azerbaijan is Turkey’s vassal, in fact, which does not worry the West. On the contrary, it leads to the understanding that Azerbaijan is in close partnership with it. Besides, Azerbaijan has close relations with Georgia without being dependent on Russia. Armenia does not have freedom of relations with Georgia and cannot normalize its relations with Turkey. This leads to the perception that Armenia is not a sovereign state. Hence, Azerbaijan remains under Turkey’s strong influence and its interests are in contradiction to the Euro-Atlantic community, as well as have not been agreed with the interests of Russia. Turkey has to take into account the positions of Russia and Iran and is in heavy dependence on the United States and NATO. However, Turkey does not initiate the start of military actions and prefers strengthening its influence in the South Caucasus. Turkey needs to deal with a series of political and security issues in the Near East but has no idea of how to resolve those issues. It would be highly dangerous to add these to the problems relating to the South Caucasus. Turkey’s involvement in regional issues would lead to NATO’s involvement in the Black Sea-Caucasus but with a different format. Neither Russia, nor Turkey agree to this. Russia and Turkey are not interested in a big war but they would like to impose not big wars on the countries of the region. A local war is the destiny of the South Caucasus.

The French ambassador in Armenia has announced that the status quo in the area of the Karaback conflict can no longer be maintained. France has recently repeated this several times, including at the Hollande – Serzh Sargsyan meeting. If the status quo cannot be maintained, there are two ways of changing it – negotiations and war. Currently no negotiations are going on, Armenia has put forth preconditions for their continuation to which Azerbaijan does not agree – the status of Artsakh and the investigation mechanisms. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan have made their points which are absolute opposites. So, the war is left and in this case there are a lot of circumstances and questions relating to the domestic affairs of the sides and foreign affairs. The domestic situation in Armenia does not suppose a war. At best, it is a threat which is usually needed at important havens of domestic developments. Currently a similar haven is there where the issue of the government is being solved for a few months. Serzh Sargsyan brings a “security concept” for his upcoming plans. There is a different problem in Azerbaijan where the economic and political situation is flammable which they still can handle. Many say the only way out of this situation for the ruling regime is the war, which is true. On the other hand, however, solving problems through a war is too big a risk because it may produce a quite different effect depending on the outcome of the war. To avoid such risks the side that will start the war, in this case Azerbaijan, must have fast and clear external guarantees, at least from one Minsk Group co-chair that the war can be stopped at the right time and in the right place. Last April Azerbaijan obviously had such guarantees. In addition, Armenia’s behavior was one of those guarantees through Russia. By that time, the war had been matured through enough factors and most of them were eliminated in the result of the military actions in April but part of them still persists and some more new circumstances are there too. The other issue is the interests of a great power. The Minsk Group remains the only platform where the United States, Europe and Russia have a more or less agreed policy and positions. However, recently the relations between the United States and Europe, namely Germany and France on one side and Russia on the other side have become complicated. Is this the condition for the resumption of war? Russia’s stance and behavior is essential in the Karabakh issue and the general situation in the area of the conflict, and the issue of resuming the military actions depends much on this. Can Russia or the other co-chairs of the Minsk Group give Azerbaijan guarantees for the outcome of the war independently from each other? Although, is it possible that new clashes are provoked at the border which will change the status quo on the one hand and enable the solution of a series of domestic and foreign issues on the other hand? In fact, is a fully controlled war possible when only one of the co-chairs is in the game. The change of the status quo does not mean only change of the line of contact or territories. Moreover, the change of the status quo on the Armenian side is perceived in the form of territorial concessions by Azerbaijan. The international recognition of Artsakh is also a change of status quo. For example, a scenario is possible when the Armenian side takes Azerbaijani territories under control, and then these territories are exchanged for some agreement with Azerbaijan. Recently Azerbaijan has been trying to cause escalation at the border, as well as over the internet, the Armenian side announces that the situation at the border is calm, at the same time blocking the daily flow of information. This expresses the attitude of the sides, and at the same time the uncertainty of the situation and even expectations. The war ends with agreement between the sides, as the saying in the movie is. Armenia and Azerbaijan are far from this “level”.

The Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev has suddenly changed his staff and 6 assistants. Fuad Aleskerov has been appointed as assistant for military affairs and law enforcement agencies. Aliyev’s nervousness is evidence to his stalemate due to his policy and geopolitical developments. Azerbaijan’s central bank has declared default, Azerbaijan has appeared amid a scandal in OSCE where an investigation is underway into the case of bribing PACE members by Azerbaijani officials. Besides, Azerbaijan has appeared amid another scandal. The Georgian president has called to investigate the abduction of the Azerbaijani journalist in Georgia and illegal border crossing. Georgians are protesting against the actions of the Azerbaijani special services. The so-called Peace Platform has failed which Azerbaijan tried to conceal its destructive stance in the talks on Karabakh. The OSCE Minsk Group has bluntly blamed Azerbaijan for ceasefire breaches. The foreign ministry of Armenia has called for applying sanctions on Azerbaijan. Aliyev is worried and is taking incomprehensible steps. The Armenian military say the Azerbaijani army is inventing targets, hitting them and then reporting hitting Armenian positions. Yesterday the International Crisis Group published a report on the Karabakh settlement which highlights the dissatisfaction of Azerbaijan with Aliyev’s policy. It is said that some circles in Azerbaijan demand implementation of the militaristic “triumphant” intentions Aliyev has been speaking about for many years. There is an opinion that Aliyev has hardly been able to suppress pressure.