Armenian political analysts do not treat ceasefire as a return to armistice

Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh should be ready for resumption of hostilities in the conflict zone. This opinion was voiced by participants in the discussion on the topic: "The lessons of the four-day war in Karabakh", which was held in Yerevan on April 12.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that at night of April 2, the situation in the Karabakh conflict zone was escalated: the parties to the conflict were engaged in hostilities with the use of tanks, multiple launch rocket systems, and aviation. At noon of April 5, the sides declared a truce, with periodic reports of violation of the agreements. On April 8, starting from 3:00 p.m. till 8:00 p.m., the parties to the conflict declared ceasefire in the conflict zone to search for bodies of killed soldiers, officers, and civilians.

Sergey Minasyan, Deputy Director of the Caucasus Institute, has noted that in the near future, Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh should re-examine the system of defence and the foreign policy vector, "since it is difficult to predict how long the ceasefire agreement achieved in Moscow on April 5 will last."

The political analyst has emphasized that as a result of the April hostilities, public confidence in President Ilham Aliev has grown up in Azerbaijan. According to Sergey Minasyan, the resumption of hostilities continues to be on the agenda in the Azerbaijani society.

Richard Kirakosyan, Director of the Centre for Regional Studies, has noted that the ceasefire agreement does not mean a return to the armistice.

According to him, one of the lessons which Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh should draw from the four-day war is that there are too little possibilities of pressure on Azerbaijan to prevent it from the resumption of hostilities.

Richard Kirakosyan believes that Armenian diplomats should take a number of steps: in particular, they should resume the negotiations to search for the resolution of the conflict, monitor facts of ceasefire violations, and review the Armenian-Russian relations.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.