Azerbaijani political observer: No country will fight for Armenia

What are your views on outcome of Turkish PM Erdogan’s visit to Russia?

During Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s Russia trip, development of the Russian-Turkish relationship, which is mainly based on energy sphere, topped the agenda of the meetings. Now Turkey is trying to improve its position in an Eastern direction, to gain a foothold in the market of those states with which it had historical differences.

In my opinion, Turkey’s foreign policy will no longer gain substantial dividends from the Western direction. Protracted process of Turkey's EU accession, in which Turkey faces new conditions and new barriers, testified to this. With regard to settlement of Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, it was discussed in Moscow, but it was not the basic question.

The reason is clear – today all parties interested in solving regional problems, first and foremost, the United States, Russia and France, are busy exclusively with how to pull Armenia from the grip of stagnation. It is made based on several considerations, including a need to support Armenia as a counterweight in relation to the rapidly developing Azerbaijan.

And in general, not peaceful and united, but rather disunited Caucasian trio is more favorable for the leading powers. So, there is nothing sensational about Moscow’s move to limit itself to discussions on details of the Nagorno-Karabakh negotiations. .

What lessons should Azerbaijan draw from current position of major regional and world powers on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict?

The current format of negotiations on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict still exits. But the year 2010, in my opinion, in absence of any significant changes in terms of the settlement of the conflict, may be the year when Azerbaijan will be forced to take concrete steps to change the situation.

This change may concern also composition of countries involved in the OSCE Minsk Group, or may force Azerbaijan to withdraw from the negotiations to launch the counter-terrorist operation to liberate the occupied territories.

If Azerbaijan decides to launch operation to enforce peace, it will not ask permission from any regional or global power. We all see how the U.S. addresses the challenges facing it solely by factor of power without considering the views of the UN and other organizations, although their problems are completely unrelated to prevention of annexation of the American territories...

Despite the ongoing negotiations, the Azerbaijani side always retains the right to use various ways to liberate the occupied territories. It includes also an option of using force. Do you think Azerbaijan is ready for this?

It is well known that war is also a way of doing economics, but by force. But the war for Azerbaijan will become a factor of forced nature, because unresolved conflict also limits country’s development blocking potential for integration projects and allows the aggressor to use the resources, mineral resources of the occupied territories.

The comparison shows the true state of affairs. Azerbaijan’s economic potential exceeds Armenia’s capability many times. Even if we assume that the level of combat readiness of the Azerbaijani and Armenian army is almost the same, Armenia is not ready to conduct large-scale and long-term hostilities in terms of resource capacity. This war will be only Azerbaijani-Armenian, and no country will fight for Armenia.

A. Hasanov