Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiation process no longer looks like  bargaining; Armenia is making unilateral concessions - Sergei  Markedonov

ArmInfo. The Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiation process no longer looks like bargaining; Armenia is making unilateral concessions. This is how Russian political scientist Sergei Markedonov commented on the latest 

incident on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.

The political scientist noted that recent news reports from 

Azerbaijan and Armenia evoke the feeling of traveling in a time 

machine. According to him, it was as if there had never been a few 

months of calm!  "Official Baku announces a "revenge operation"  in 

response to "Armenian provocations." Official Yerevan speaks of 

Azerbaijan's groundless attacks on the border village of Nerkin Hand. 

Some overly zealous bloggers and telegrammers are predicting a new 

regional war.

I'm not sure that in today's conditions it is possible for an expert 

who is not directly "on the ground" to identify the main person 

responsible for the February escalation. Such attempts will either be 

outright speculation, or "the fan's position", accepting the position 

of one of the parties, not interested in an objective assessment," 

the Russian expert believes.

At the same time, Markedonov is confident that in this regard it is 

extremely important to identify the systemic reasons for the current 

aggravation. "It definitely cannot be considered a coincidence. And 

here again it is necessary to repeat the old thesis that the conflict 

between Armenia and Azerbaijan is not limited to the Karabakh format. 

It is broader. Otherwise, after the September "day and a half war" 

and the completion of the process of restoring Azerbaijani 

territorial integrity, the gestalt would have been closed .  However, 

it is still far from being the case. As Ilham Aliyev's assistant 

Hikmet Hajiyev said in an interview with Berliner Zeitung, there are 

still "several unresolved issues." But among them is the delimitation 

and demarcation of the state border. A fundamental issue for any 

state! Without its solution, the peace treaty may remain just paper," 

he added.

The expert stated that this is where the differences between the 

parties do not end, but continue. He mentioned that Yerevan is 

talking about the de facto territorial expansion of Azerbaijan from 

2020 to 2022 at the expense of some territories of the Republic of 

Armenia itself. Markedonov believes that this is where the 

actualization of Armenia's territorial integrity, not Azerbaijan's, 

becomes relevant.

"Baku is focusing on enclaves/exclaves. And if the Armenian side 

wants to save face, the Azerbaijani side is in a hurry to finally and 

preferably consolidate the victory forever.

The parties have different rates of progress towards a peace 

agreement. The negotiation process itself no longer looks like 

bargaining; Armenia is making unilateral concessions. But at the same 

time it wants to prolong this process by achieving some kind of 

external support. Expecting, at some stage, someone big and strong 

will bring Azerbaijan to it senses , which has acquired a taste and 

is not ready to "make haste slowly," the expert noted.

At the same time, he drew attention to the fact that the logic of the 

Armenian leadership is something like this: the old status quo was 

broken largely due to the passivity of Russia, it is necessary to 

find some more effective allies-partners.

"The key word here is diversification! Nikol Pashinyan touched on 

this in his last interview with the Republic's Public Radio and in 

his last interview with The Daily Telegraph. 'Cynically' speaking, if 

such a "compensatory mechanism" had worked, then the Prime Minister 

of Armenia could be preparing a chapter about their diplomatic 

talents in a future history textbook. But it doesn't work! And the 

(in)activity of the EU monitoring group, and French promises without 

clear guarantees and tools are the best proof of this thesis. 

Conclusion: Baku is in a hurry and wants a complete resolution, 

Yerevan is waiting, playing for time, hoping almost like a miracle. 

Hope dies last.

However, the not very effective actions of the Armenian leadership in 

the international arena (not even from the Russian point of view, but 

in fact and in the result), and the even less pleasant actions of the 

West (from the point of view of the interests of the Russian 

Federation) should not create some kind of "resentment complex" in 

Moscow. Emotions in general are a bad advisor. "Getting upset with" 

Armenia and going to Azerbaijan is not the most creative idea, if 

only because Baku also has its own windows and doors to the West. In 

general, there cannot be simple recommendations here; the main thing 

is the desire to listen and hear them. Escalation is a consequence of 

systemic problems in the peace process. And a blow to him, without 

illusions, will also ricochet into the interests of Russia, we need 

to think, first of all, about this," Markedonov concluded.