ALEXANDER KRYLOV
Security Treaty Organization later on. The formula transformed into“ CSTO in exchange for Karabakh” and then“ EEU in exchange for Karabakh”.
The diplomatic gambits proved ineffective as( like in Georgia) they were based on an extreme overestimate of the country’ s importance for the United States, EU and Russia. Not surprisingly, the twilight hopes that someone from external players would force Armenia to return Nagorno-Karabakh under the authority of Azerbaijan, did not materialize. The result was disappointment in US, EU and Russian policies within the Azerbaijani community, while the authorities recognized the necessity to develop a new approach towards the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and Armenia“ based on own forces”.
10
The positions of the conflicting parties
The position of Armenia in the negotiations on the Karabakh problem( shared by Yerevan and Stepanakert) was based on the“ package principle” which implied settling the status of the Nagorno- Karabakh Republic based on the nations’ right of self-determination and Azerbaijan regaining control over the territories which constituted the“ security belt” for the NKR after the war and were controlled by Armenian armed forces. Azerbaijan relied on the“ staged approach” which would enable Baku to gradually regain control over all territories of the former Azerbaijan SSR lost after the war.
Narrowing the gap between the parties’ positions, which were mutually exclusive by default, proved impossible, and all attempts to reach a mutually acceptable peaceful solution in the negotiations under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group failed. The Azerbaijani government placed the Karabakh problem in the center of the country’ s political life, the re-take of“ occupied territories” developed into the nation’ s principal idea designed to consolidate people around the acting government. Today, dropping this idea would be impossible for Baku like a surrender of the NKR for Yerevan.
A rise in energy prices in the early 2000s provided the Azerbaijani government with the financial resources required to pursue an active policy for regaining the lost territories. As it subsequently appeared, the aim of that policy was to exhaust Armenia and force it to