The Karabakh Conflict in the Context of Political Processes in Armenia and Azerbaijan - 2018: Page 11 of 11

in their policy with the West. One cannot be constantly intimidated by Russia. Periodically, the authorities speak of Islamic values, in contrast to “unacceptable Western values”. It is a dangerous game, of course, but that’s what we have got today. Moreover, the Karabakh conflict took an interesting turn. If earlier it used to be an ethnic conflict for the Azerbaijanis, now they are more often talking about the religious aspect in the conflict and explaining the support the Armenians receive from Russia and the West from the religious perspective.

Sergey Markedonov- Russia does not support the NKR (not only de jure, as in the case of Abkhazia and South Ossetia), but also using political and economic methods (as in the case of Transnistria and LDPR). It does not call into question the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. As for Russia, it perceives composedly the role of the West, because here, unlike Georgia and Ukraine, there are no projects of Euro-Atlantic integration, targeting Armenia and Azerbaijan. Baku and Yerevan have relations with NATO and the EU, but they do not line up on a confrontational algorithm in relation to Moscow. However, at the same time, we cannot claim that the interests of Russia and the West in the Karabakh settlement would be identical. The US and its allies are much more critical of the existing status quo. In principle, they would be ready to push the peace process, but they refrain from doing it because of other priorities. Moscow fears the destruction of the fragile status quo, rightly fearing that going beyond it is risky and is not always a guarantee for a successful peaceful resolution.

Please read the full material in Russian HERE.