BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 18. Armenia has to accept the new reality in the South Caucasus, the Director of the Institute for Political Studies, Sergey Markov told Trend.
"The main option that Armenian leadership has been counting on and is counting on is that someone else should fight for Armenian interests in Karabakh. They, of course, expected that Russia would fight for Armenia since Armenia is a member of the CSTO and a member Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC)," he said.
"Actually, Armenia joined these organizations for this, so that Russia would be for it in the Karabakh conflict. But Russia refused to fight for Armenia and takes a clear neutral position. Now the Russian position causes such hatred in the leadership of Armenia that it constantly accuses Russia of a pro-Azerbaijani position. Armenia's allies, such as French President Emmanuel Macron, also accuse Russia of a pro-Azerbaijani position. In fact, Russia's position is neutral and fair," Markov stated.
According to him, the second option that Armenian tried to find is that France will first send its observers and then its servicemen to Karabakh.
"On one hand, France is supporting Armenia as much as possible, on the other hand, I believe that Armenian leadership and society guess that France will not send its own servicemen to fight for Armenian interest against the Azerbaijani army in Karabakh," Markov said.
That is, France will try to take the side of Armenia in diplomatic negotiations to help politically and diplomatically, however, militarily the country will not go to fight for Armenia. This understanding hangs like a heavy shadow over Armenia," he added.
Markov noted that there is another option, that Armenia is trying to use is to achieve high autonomy for Armenian society in Karabakh, such that this autonomy is almost independent.
"But this is impossible, Azerbaijan does not want to give any separate status to the Armenian community of Karabakh. Azerbaijan insists that all nations and peoples in the country enjoy the same rights," he said.
Markov stressed that Russians, Jews and many other representatives of other nationalities live in Azerbaijan and they all have equal rights.
"However, Armenian society puts itself above all other peoples. Such ultra-nationalism dominates them and leads them to a dead end. Armenians have accustomed themselves to the fact that they cannot live peacefully together with the Azerbaijanis, therefore they cannot integrate into Azerbaijani society. They convinced themselves that the Azerbaijanis are the enemies of the Armenians, and therefore they cannot live together. But this is a huge mistake - the Azerbaijanis are not the enemies of the Armenians at all," he informed.
"Armenians have lived as part of Azerbaijan for many decades. Armenia must accept - there will be no autonomy. It's necessary to discuss the stages of complete integration of the Armenian community of Karabakh into Azerbaijan on general terms, like other peoples. Armenian society must accept they are not people of the first class in comparison with other people in general. And that the Armenian community of Azerbaijan should not have special privileges in comparison with national communities of other peoples in Azerbaijan," Markov concluded.