... especially when U.S.–Iran relations are likely to deteriorate even further moving forward. This could also help speed up the settlement process, as well as promote cooperation not only between Baku and Yerevan, but also with Ankara, which should lead to Turkey and Azerbaijan lifting the land blockade against Armenia that was established during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
What is more, Washington has started to openly demonstrate its intention over the past few years to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict independently in the context of implementing its ...
... the key issues of the international agenda that will be discussed at the forthcoming UN General Assembly, including the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, end of the war in Ukraine, reduction of tensions over the nuclear deal with Iran, and Turkey's heated relations with the West.
- Andrey Vadimovich, how do you assess the prospects for the meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia on the fields of the UN General Assembly?
- Any meeting between high representatives of these two countries is very important, since contacts, exchange of positions, comparison of viewpoints, perhaps the establishment of relations are maybe small,...
... independent peace-making projects
with regard to Nagorno-Karabakh. France is the European Union’s representative in the Minsk Group.
The Neighbour Factor: Turkey and Iran
It is impossible to achieve a settlement of the ethno-political conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan without taking into account the interests of neighbouring powers, Turkey and Iran, both of which claim the role of independent actors with interests different from those of Moscow and Washington.
Russia and the West are far from being the only actors with regard to Nagorno-Karabakh. It is impossible to achieve a settlement ...
... Moscow sends armored vehicles and other military hardware to Armenia.
Until recently the Kremlin has tried to come up with what Fenenko describes as “a balanced partnership” — “maintaining the collaborative relations with Armenia” and “a strategic partnership with Azerbaijan.” However, given Turkey’s political stakes in Azerbaijan and the sharp decline in Moscow-Ankara relations resulting from Turkey’s downing of a Russian jet near the Syrian border last year, the Kremlin’s attempts to straddle between Yerevan and Baku might ...
... with Aliyev in Ankara weeks before had become a source of inspiration in social media, could have been behind encouraging Aliyev for the military escalation, too. Leaving aside conspiracy theories, main source of these judgments was the fact that only Turkey, among all other nations, voiced unequivocal support to Azerbaijani military adventure, to quote Erdogan, “till the end”.
True, on the other hand, Russia is thought by many to be the staunch ally of Armenia, based on the depth and spectrum of bilateral relations, including within the frameworks of CSTO and EAU. However, the Kremlin has made no statement of support to Armenia unilaterally, and from the early hours of escalation voiced only “concerns” ...
... the Russian-Turkish crisis
Relations between Turkey and Armenia are already tense. They are burdened by many historical problems, the genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during World War I above all. The countries have no diplomatic relations. Turkey openly supports Azerbaijan in the Karabakh conflict and maintains a transport and communication blockade against Armenia, which it imposed in the early 1990s.
The dramatic developments in the Middle East and the crisis in Russian-Turkish relations only accelerated the modernization of the Russian military presence in Armenia and strengthened cooperation between ...
