"Karabakh mediators focus on 'preventing war'
Mon 14 February 2011 07:39 GMT | 2:39 Local Time
Richard Giragosian
How would you describe 2010 in terms of the Karabakh conflict settlement?
Clearly, developments in 2010 were both destructive and dangerous, as the danger of a return to hostilities and even war is perhaps greater than ever. In other words, tension has escalated and has been matched by an increase in deaths along the “line of contact”. This also shows that Azerbaijan has now initiated a new policy, a “diplomacy of war” that seeks to pressure not only Armenia, but to also exert new pressure on the OSCE and the West. This new, more assertive policy reflects Baku’s increasing frustration with the lack of real progress in the peace process and a decrease in the level of trust or faith in the mediators themselves. And naturally, this has been only exacerbated by Azerbaijan’s perception or sense of betrayal by Turkey over the course of the Turkish-Armenian “protocols” and Ankara’s efforts to “normalize” relations with Yerevan. Thus, we can see that in 2010, Baku has moved from a policy of a “war of diplomacy” to one defined by the “diplomacy of war”."
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