Azerbaijan not willing to abandon war threats – Armenian analyst

The Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents' meeting in Geneva made clear that that Azerbaijan does not have a full willingness to enforce confidence-building measures to facilitate future peace efforts over Nagorno-Karabakh, according to a political analyst.

Speaking to Tert.am, Sergey Minasyan, a deputy director of the Yerevan-based Caucasus Institute, described the Baku authorities' policies as a clear sign that they are unwilling to abandon their repeatedly voiced war threats to pave way to a breakthrough.

“Azerbaijan thus demonstrates that they do not agree to the political reality they have themselves created, and won’t accept the status quo. They demonstrate that they are not ready to freeze the tension to head towards mutual concessions. Against the continuing shootings along the border and the human losses, mutual concessions are understandably ruled out.”

According to Minasyan, the April 2016 blitzkrieg was a clear sign that Azerbaijan does not want a war despite the unprecedented tensions.

“That means there are factors that restrain even Azerbaijan’s unpredictable regime from a war scenario,” he said, ruling out also pressures by superpowers.

“Repeated border tensions are more likely than a full-scale war,” Minasyan said, agreeing at the same time that lower-level escalations may at times have an equivalent effect.

Minasyan said he doesn't treat even the Geneva summit as real negotiations.  “It wasn’t intended for reaching a political agreement. It was just a meeting for creating preconditions and opportunities for negotiations. The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs arranged a meeting to prepare grounds for future talks and to initiate them sometime in the future. What the OSCE Minsk Group is doing is not just paving way to a solution but also contributing to ceasefire maintenance. That justifies their engagement in the process. If we really want a ceasefire regime, it is important to embark also on political efforts,” he added.