Alexander Iskandaryan: The situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, as before,  will hang in the air

ArmInfo.The post-war situation in Nagorno-Karabakh can be described as anomy, when the old order is dying and the new one has not yet formed.

This opinion was expressed in an interview with ArmInfo by the director of the  Caucasus Institute, political scientist Alexander Iskandaryan,  answering the question of how he assesses the information about the  possible reorganization of the Defense Army of the unrecognized  republic, the liquidation of the Foreign Ministry and other state  institutions. According to Iskandaryan, these spreads of false  information are conducted by Azerbaijani propaganda, which as a rule,  not intentionally are replicated in Armenia.  Nevertheless, according  to the political scientist, one must understand that, usually, after  the wars, the parties come to the conclusion of agreements developed  at the congresses interested in resolving the issues of the post-war  arrangement of the parties to the conflict and mediators. The most  global examples of this are the Westphalian, Vienna, Versailles, and  Postdam systems of international relations. The second local 44-day  Karabakh war has not been completed by such, one might say,  "congress" and post-war organization. The Trilateral Statement of  November 9 is not, according to the political scientist, an  international document on the reorganization of the region, it is a  statement of a ceasefire.  According to Iskandaryan, a kind of  preparation for such a "congress" is underway. The parties are  constantly in some kind of contact, in some state of pressure on each  other, in order to determine how the situation will develop further,  and this happens in a latent diplomatic mode, which will require a  certain amount of time, it is not known how much. Today, the  political scientist believes, the parties to the conflict, its direct  participants, beneficiaries and mediators are inside this process.  Among the players are Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey,  Nagorno-Karabakh itself, the EU represented by the OSCE MG structure.  At the same time, neighboring Iran, according to Iskandaryan,  although it actively positions itself, conducting shuttle diplomacy,  however, will not be able to seriously influence the further  situation, since it is not a member of the OSCE.

Each of the participants-players of the process, the expert believes,  is in a different weight category from the point of view of the  resource of influence. Armenia, and even more so Artsakh, as the  losing sides, has an extremely small resource in this situation,  which means there are few opportunities. The issues of subjectivity,  ensuring one's own security, the ability to influence Azerbaijan are  also troubling. And Azerbaijan seeks to get the most from the victory  it won on the battlefield. There is a process of such mutual pressure  of the parties. In some issues, there is tangible resistance, both  from Armenia and, in particular, from Russia, which managed to stop  the massacre. "We saw the pressure with which Turkey was going to  become the co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, but it did not succeed,  it was not given the opportunity. Then Turkey was clearly going to  become part of the peacekeeping contingent. It did not succeed in  that attempt either, although, apparently, Ilham Aliyev promised  Turkey this. The monitoring group was partly successful, partly not.  Baku and Ankara wanted to deploy it inside Nagorno-Karabakh itself,  but this did not work out either. Some kind of process is going on.  We will see how it goes, because now the situation has not yet become  clear enough to make predictions, "Iskandaryan stressed.

According to the expert, the talks and demands of Azerbaijan about  depriving the Republic of Artsakh of the subjectivity and elements  and institutions inherent in the state structure, as well as muddy  talks about some kind of "cultural autonomy" are a false concept,  since the Karabakh problem has not been resolved for Azerbaijan, no  matter what Aliyev says there. Iskandaryan stressed that the  territory that Azerbaijan considers its own - about 3 thousand square  kilometers - is not controlled by Baku. This territory is not subject  to Azerbaijan, there are people who have proclaimed an independent  republic, and they are not going to enter Azerbaijan. But this  Artsakh republic is not recognized by Azerbaijan in turn.  Accordingly, the problem remains. And if the republic exists, then  there must be a functioning system for ensuring its life, certain  management structures, regardless of the presence of international  recognition. And on top of that, this republic needs the security of  its inhabitants, which today is ensured by the presence of a 2,000-  strong Russian peacekeeping contingent, and it is not clear whether  this contingent will be increased.  When asked whether NKR can  already be considered a kind of informal mandated territory of  Russia, Iskandaryan noted the obvious incorrectness of the question,  since historically such territories were formed on behalf of the  international community in order to create conditions for their  further independent existence. And this already exists in  Nagorno-Karabakh. "The Russians are not building Karabakh, they are  ensuring its security. The question here is security and the format  of the existence of Nagorno-Karabakh.  And all this is the army,  ministries, etc. - the administrative structures of the state, albeit  not recognized>,- the political scientist emphasized.

Speaking about possible scenarios for the post-war structure of the  region, Iskandaryan called the continuation of the current "status  quo" the most realistic.