Most analysts in Yerevan rule out the resumption of large-scale hostilities in what now is the zone of conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Yet, some say the threat of war will never cease for Karabakh until a compromise-based solution is found to the protracted dispute.

This week European Union Special Representative for the South Caucasus Peter Semneby said the region still remains fragile and unpredictable.

“The unresolved conflicts in the South Caucasus are the primary threats to the region’s stability since the status quo is inherently unstable and contains dangers of escalation. This was demonstrated by the August 2008 war in Georgia. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is of particular concern; there are recurring deadly incidents along the line of contact,” Semneby said. “The protracted conflicts also undermine EU efforts to promote political reform and economic development in its Eastern neighborhood.”

The talk of imminent resumption of hostilities in Karabakh and related speculations have become more frequent among political circles in Armenia. The international community has also expressed its concern over the matter, as world leaders, namely of the United States, France and Russia, which jointly mediate the Armenia-Azerbaijan talks on Karabakh, have urged the parties to the conflict to resolve the problem peacefully, on the basis of so-called Madrid principles.

(The plan, or its various modifications, which was first submitted to the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs in 2007 and is currently on the table of negotiations, basically calls for an Armenian withdrawal from several districts now controlled by the Karabakh military, the return of Azerbaijani refugees, security guarantees for the Armenian population and an interim status for Karabakh with the possibility of a future determination of the region’s ultimate legal status.)

During a meeting with journalists in Yerevan Deputy Chairman of the CIS Affairs Committee at the Russian State Duma Konstantin Zatulin said he did not think large-scale military operations would resume in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone.

“Perhaps there will be provocations, including dangerous ones and ones that lead to human casualties, as it happened very recently, but, in my opinion, [Azerbaijani President Ilham] Aliyev will not dare to start a war that will jeopardize Azerbaijan’s and his own fate,” said Zatulin.
Deadly fighting erupted last month as Azerbaijani commandos attempted to overrun the Karabakh Armenian positions in the northeast, killing four and wounding as many Armenian soldiers. One Azeri soldier was also reportedly killed in the close engagement after which the Karabakh forces managed to stop the enemy’s advancement into the Armenian-controlled territories and make it withdraw.

The overnight clash, which occurred within hours after the latest round of peace talks between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan and was condemned by Yerevan as a provocation, emphasized the shaky state of the ceasefire that has largely held in the conflict zone for 16 years. The Russia-brokered agreement of 1994 put an end to nearly three years of fighting that claimed an estimated 30,000 lives on both sides. It left the Karabakh forces in control of most of the former Armenian-populated autonomous region of Azerbaijan as well as seven districts outside it held as a security zone.

This week Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev held a meeting with the former Nagorno-Karabakh Azeri community during which he reiterated that Baku will seek to restore the country’s territorial integrity.

In his speech, President Aliyev said that if Azerbaijan saw that the peace process had exhausted itself, it would choose to resolve the matter militarily and claimed that international law gave Azerbaijan that right.

Armenian Center for National and International Studies (ACNIS) Director Richard Giragosian thinks that Azerbaijan will not officially declare war and will not launch a large-scale offensive, because in that case it will be at the receiving end both militarily and in terms of its domestic politics.

“Azerbaijan can do it and it can be expected that such attempts might be made during summer months. The Armenian army must be ready for this possible ‘accidental war’,” said Giragosian, speaking during a roundtable discussion in Yerevan early this week.

Another political analyst in Yerevan Suren Surenyants says the current peace plan may contain some ‘vague’ provisions and wording not favorable for Armenians, but does not think it advisable to withdraw from talks “even in the case of negative proposals”.

“Because pulling out of the negotiations will mean a war. We must mobilize all our internal resources to get the maximum from the negotiating process,” says Surenyants, who is also a member of the opposition Hanrapetutyun party’s political council.

The foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan are expected to meet, possibly in a broader format, on the sidelines of an OSCE ministerial conference in Almaty, Kazakhstan, at the end of next week. The international mediators called for such a meeting during their shuttle diplomacy tour of the region last week.