Epress.am News from Armenia
People sitting in Washington or Brussels don’t care about the life, death and blood of Armenians and Azerbaijanis, said Russian expert on political conflicts, member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation and host of Russia’s First Channel Maxim Shevchenko, commenting on the resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, during a PEN Club meeting of journalists from the North and South Caucuses organized by RIA Novosti, reports 1news.az.
“I still think that in order to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, it’s necessary to take into account not only global players in the world, for whom the region and its inhabitants are no more than pawns on a chessboard. Believe me, the people sitting in Washington or Brussels don’t care about the life, death and blood of either Armenians or Azerbaijanis. I have seen those schemes, which they draw up. In them are oil and gas pipelines. In those schemes there aren’t soldiers who will die, there aren’t their wives, mothers, sisters, who will shed tears if, god forbid, something happens,” said Shevchenko.
According to him, it’s the regional states — Russia, Iran and Turkey — that have a direct interest in the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
“‘But states such as Russia, Iran and Turkey, by contrast, have a direct interest in this region. There are personal and long-standing, sometimes complex and in some places, clear ties with these or other states in the region. For some, it’s stronger; for others, it’s weaker. For example, I believed and believe that the processes between Armenia and Turkey in the past two years still play a crucial role,” he said.
The First Channel host added, “a definite solution was not achieved, but it wouldn’t have been possible to achieve, since Turkey will not deviate from a position of supporting Azerbaijan. But even the course taken by the Turkish authorities to enter into dialogue with Armenia is unprecedented.”
“I stress again the importance of avoiding a military solution, because any military solution to Karabakh, whatever illusions the conflicting parties have, will bring down the entire Caucasus into a permanent vortex of terrible ethnic wars, of which there will be no exit in the same extent as was possible in the early 90s when some structures of the former Soviet Union were still operational,” he said.
Shevchenko advised to take into account the “deteriorating situation around Iran, which not only has its personal direct political interest in the region, but also maintains relations with both Armenia and Azerbaijan. This includes borders, which today are under the control of Armenian military units, including on the part of Nagorno-Karabakh. The situation around Iran has complicated the situation in the region so that Tehran’s collective stranglehold, which is happening now, is a direct path to war.”
“I would just like to warn the peoples of Armenia and Azerbaijan that they can become a tool for unleashing global crisis [and] global war in the region,” concluded Shevchenko.