US and France will be taking ‘far more active role’ in Karabakh settlement in coming months – Paul Goble

The United States and France are preparing to take a far more active role in the Nagorno-Karbakh (Artsakh) peace process in the coming couple of months, says Paul Goble, a US analyst and writer specializing in post-Soviet geopolitical affairs.

In an interview with Tert.am, he admitted Washington’s somewhat constraint attitude over the recenet period, citing the campaign for the presidential elections on the one hand and former President Donald Trump’s defense to Russian President Vladimir Putin on the other.

“But that has changed. And I expect much more movement in the coming weeks and months,” he said.

Asked to comment on the Armenian foreign minister’s call for stepping up the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmanship’s efforts, Mr. Goble said he had never been a big fan of that international mission acting as a peace mediator between Armenia and Azerbaijan.  

“I have always felt it was a body created not to solve the problems of the region but to freeze them, out of a conviction that keeping things where they are represents a kind of solution. The Minsk Group was largely irrelevant during the fighting and it is going to have to work hard to become relevant again. France is the major actor as far as that is concerned,” he added.

Addressing the Armenian leadership’s cooperation with international actors during the 44-day war in Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh), the analyst said he never observed an active cooperation over the entire period. “Yerevan has not worked as effectively with any of the outside players as it should have. For the first time ever, Baku has had the advantage not only because the state system gives preference to the stability of borders over the right of nations to self-determination but because Armenian officials have not even made the best case they could on behalf of their position. And they have lacked the imagination to take steps to counter others. Why, after Moscow kept talking about not having to support Yerevan on Nagorno-Karabakh because Armenia hadn’t recognized it as a state didn’t Armenia decide to go ahead and recognize NK? It could have done so but didn’t. It simply sat silent,” he said.