Expert: Armenia not interested in stability in region

The frontline provocations staged by Armenian armed forces once again prove that this country is not interested in peace and stability in the South Caucasus, said Arye Gut, Israeli expert on international relations and specialist on the South Caucasus.

The expert believes that the current criminal clan in Armenia is only interested in maintaining the status quo in the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Gut, talking to Trend, said that Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan tries to justify the occupation and aggressive policy of his country in all his speeches. “In fact, he reaffirms his low-level political culture,” he noted.

Azerbaijan and Armenia for over two decades have been locked in conflict, which emerged over Armenian territorial claims. Since the 1990s war, Armenian armed forces have occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including NagornoKarabakh and seven adjacent regions. The UN Security Council has adopted four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal, but they have not been enforced to this day.

The expert further added that the frontline provocations show that the aggressor country is simply not interested in peace. “For them, war is an opportunity to preserve their power,” said Gut.

He added that members of the ruling criminal regime in Armenia destroy their own country. “The number of Armenians in today’s Armenia not exceeds a million. The rich Armenian Diaspora and sponsorship of the U.S. Congress save Armenia from hunger – it is an indisputable fact,” Gut said.

Expert Alexander Karavaev, in turn, is sure that just diplomatic efforts are not enough to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Karavaev, who is the leading expert of North-South political science center, told Trend that it is necessary to influence Armenia with complex measures in order to force it to liberate the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.

He further noted that the OSCE Minsk Group, which deals with the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, has completely exhausted itself in terms of influencing.

At the same time, Karavayev believes it is wrong to rely on force as it will lead to a full-scale war.