​Sabine Freizer: Increase of skirmishes on contact line make a chance of the war bigger

Baku. 3 April. REPORT.AZ/ "Skirmishes now are on broader geographic line. It is not only on Nagorno Karabakh, it is also on the border between Azerbaijan and Armenia. So, this is very worrying trend."

Report was informed by the expert on the South Caucasus, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Sabine Freizer on this issue.

In her opinion, this trend makes a chance of war bigger since there is no communication between militants of two countries: "I should say that this is unique if you compare for example Georgia, so there is a way to talk to each other, but this is not the case here. The problem is that the negotiations are not going well, there is less likelyhood that there is a negotiated settlement and I think that this creates a lot of unhappiness, particularly in Azerbaijan, so this makes a chance of a war bigger".

Commenting on the recent calls to include Turkey and Germany as co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, S. Freizer was skeptical: "It depends on the parties, both Azerbaijan and Armenia have to agree to that. Azerbaijan is interested in increasing the number of co-chairs, Armenia is less interested. Unfortunately, relations between Turkey and Armenia are not going well, particularly this year. I don't see there will be chances to include Turkey as a co-chair."

S. Freizer also drew parallels between the conflict in Ukraine and its impact on the South Caucasus region. According to the expert, the Ukrainian issue, first of all, proves that Russia is an important player in the security issue, and it cannot be ignored.