Forecast: By signing the mandate of the Russian peacekeepers, Aliyev  will personally cancel the "Shushi Declaration" with Turkey

ArmInfo. The authorities, no doubt, need to dispel public doubts about the current processes in the region. In particular, processes involving Russia, Turkey and  Azerbaijan.  Head of the Armenian Institute of International and  Security Affairs Stepan Safaryan expressed a similar opinion to  ArmInfo.

"Around the same pending process of demarcation and delimitation of  borders with Azerbaijan, about which, by the way, the Armenian  authorities have been talking so much lately, there are many  questions, answers to which do not sound. And in light of the  presence of many uncertainties, that are not at all originating from  the interests of Armenia, in this issue, our government clearly  should not be so active in pedaling this topic. In general, I  consider the approach that links the establishment of a decent peace  with the clarification of borders, as naive, "he said.

Commenting on the latest impulses in the relations between Armenia  and Azerbaijan with the third party of the current processes around  Artsakh - Russia, the analyst highlighted the formulation that found  a place in one of the official documents of the RF Ministry of  Defense - the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. Noting that the mention of  the NKR has already caused a uniform multi-level hysteria in Baku,  Safaryan assessed the incident as an obvious challenge to Azerbaijan  from the Russian Federation.

"The essence of what is happening is obvious. Baku is clearly making  it clear that if it continues to evade the mandate that legitimizes  the presence of Russian peacekeepers in Artsakh, Moscow will simply  start writing in its internal protocols and documents where it is in  reality. Thus, this hysteria of Baku is clearly in Moscow's  interests, as evidenced by the rather restrained, apparently dry  response of the Russian Defense Ministry to the Azerbaijani shouts,  "he stressed.

Recently, the head of the foreign policy department of the  Azerbaijani presidential administration, Hikmet Hajiyev, told the BBC  that "certain discussions regarding additional legal mechanisms  related to the mandate of the Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh are  still ongoing."

A Russian peacekeeping contingent of 1,960 servicemen and 380 units  of military and special equipment is deployed in Artsakh on the basis  of a statement signed on November 9, 2020 by the leaders of Armenia,  Russia and Azerbaijan on the cessation of hostilities in the zone of  the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

According to Safaryan, in such ways Baku is making it clear not only  the need to sign a protocol on the peacekeepers' mandate as soon as  possible, but also to comply with the rules of the game on the  ground, as well as refrain from additional demands. For example, from  the demand to disarm the Artsakh Defense Army. Meanwhile, all this,  according to his forecasts, neutralizes, actually cancels, the  declaration signed by Erdogan and Aliyev in Shushi. According to it,  Ankara receives a mandate to defend Artsakh, if suddenly someone  decides to attack it. Meanwhile, according to the analyst, the Turks  signed this declaration precisely in order to prevent Azerbaijan from  signing a mandate for the stay of peacekeepers in Artsakh.