Escalation in Karabakh conflict zone not a direct military action, Russian analyst says

“War is not a mere collision of the military systems. Right now Azerbaijan has not a clear superiority, otherwise the military action could have been already started before,” Markedonov said. 

Apart from the military format, there are also some political plots, the expert said. 

“Georgia relied on the West’s support and considered the conflict as a certain mediation war between the West and Russia, but this will not be the case with the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict as both sides have their sympathizers, plus the Iranian factor that should not be ignored. Apart from this, the Turkish factor plays a special role here,” Markedonov said, as cited by Novosti-Armenia. 

Breaking of the status quo may be a shrink-wrapped equation, and one should be confident in some outcome before taking the risks, the expert said. 

A result similar to the one from the 1995 Serbian Krajina operation could be a possible outcome, when Croatian forces and volunteers crushed the unrecognized Republic of Serbian Krajina having formal and informal support from the West. 

“But in our case Azerbaijan has no such consolidated support. And if it is not a blitzkrieg operation carried out in two-three days, but drags on, it creates lots of internal political problems for Baku itself,” Markedonov said. 

Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliev is a quite cautious, literate, smart and crafty politician understanding this can boomerang on himself, Markedonov said. 

“Knowing history of his country, he remembers what the Karabakh adventures ended up with both for Mutalibov and Elchibey – in fact with a runaway and political defeat. It is one thing to contemplate loudly that that we are going to beat up everyone, but it is a different thing to receive death notices and reports about losses. That is why I don’t think this will lead to a war,” Markedonov concluded. 

The Karabakh conflict started in 1988 when prevailingly Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh declared withdrawal from Azerbaijan. On December 10, 1991, a referendum was held in Nagorno-Karabakh where 99.89% voted for independence from Azerbaijan. 

Azerbaijan responded by large-scale military operations that led to loss of control not only over Nagorno-Karabakh itself, but also over seven adjoining areas. About 25-30 thousand people were killed and about a million had to leave their homes during the military operations. 

A trilateral cease-fire agreement was signed on May 12, 2004, and has been followed since then. The ongoing Karabakh peace process started in 1992 under auspices of OSCE Minsk Group co-chaired by the USA, Russia and France. –0--