It would be rather strangely if Moscow began "brushing out" the institutes that somehow ensure the status quo around the Karabakh conflict. That is why in Sochi the presidents did not mention any fundamentally new approach to the NK conflict's resolution that would somehow ran contrary to the renovated Madrid Principles. The remarks came from Sergey Markedonov, Associate Professor at the Russian State Humanitarian University, well-known political analyst, in an interview with ArmInfo.
To recall, the trilateral meeting Sargsyan-Aliyev-Putin in Sochi on 10 August was the initiative of the Russian leader. The sides agreed to continue the peace talks and defuse tensions in the conflict zone.
"Anyway, the Russian president's rhetoric that reaffirmed the importance and inalterability of the existing international formats of the NK peace process means that Moscow does not seek to replay the Karabakh "game" in a radically new way. In the given case, it was nothing but pragmatism, considering that new formats may be very unpredictable. Considering the ongoing Ukrainian crisis, Russia is not interested in new challenges along its borders, the analyst said.
Markedonov explains Moscow's efforts to minimize new risks with a desire to suspend the situation in Eurasia. According to him, Moscow starts 'revamping' only when it feels a threat of being ousted from the fields and regions of its interests, like it happened in Ossetia and Abkhazia. The West, specifically the USA, could easily use the Karabakh conflict as a precedent for other regions in Eurasia, if they viewed the Sochi meeting outcome in the sense of pragmatism. "Although it is difficult to say if the tripartite mediating body on the NK conflict will become permanent or not, it is obvious that the given format is again demanded, hardly replaceable and extremely needed," the analyst said for conclusion.
Since 1992 the OSCE Minsk Group represented by co-chairs from Russia, U.S. and France has been mediating in resolution of the conflict unleashed by Azerbaijan in 1988. At present the peace process is based on the Madrid Principles suggested by the OSCE MG in 2007 in Madrid and renovated in 2009.