New escalation of conflict in Armenia is possible — Alexander Tsinker

Alexander Tsinker, Director of the Institute of Eastern Europe and the CIS in Israel, shared his insights with Alpha News regarding the possibility of a renewed escalation of the conflict in Armenia.

“A new escalation is possible after Armenia has agreed to the version of the peace agreement, the contents of which remain undisclosed. The Armenian authorities have expressed their readiness, saying, ‘Yes, please inform us of the date and place, and we will come to sign the agreement.’ And then Azerbaijan started reconsidering its stance, because, as I believe, Azerbaijan is not going to sign a peace agreement. And then, it turns out it needs to do something, or negotiate and sign, or come up with something. And there are two directions. The first is purely informational. They might agree in principle but insist on addressing additional issues, such as constitutional matters and the corridor. The second approach involves preparing for a potential military operation as a backup plan, particularly if Armenia refuses to make further concessions.

It seems to me that they have already started. Every day, Armenia appears to be firing on the border with Azerbaijan several times. But at the same time, Azerbaijan has never sent any documents. Armenia has proposed the formation of a commission to investigate and resolve border incidents or other events. Azerbaijan can continue as long as it wants. If Azerbaijan adopts this narrative, they could later say that they had been tolerating it for a month and must act. Anything is possible,” Tsinker said.