News - Cavanaugh: If Azerbaijan is happy with this outcome, this doesn’t solve the dispute

I think no one can be happy with this outcome and even Baku. If Baku is happy with this outcome, I do not believe personally that this solves this dispute. Ambassador Carey Cavanaugh, former US Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group and Professor at University of Kentucky Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce, stated this on the air of Armenian News-NEWS.am's Strength Factor program, and reflecting to the military operations unleashed by Azerbaijan against Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) and the Armenian ethnic cleansing carried out there under its pressure, and the resultant forced displacement of the people of Artsakh. Cavanaugh is convinced that the issue will not be resolved even if the entire population of Nagorno Karabakh goes to Armenia. "I think because again, the fundamental questions of how people live together in harmony where the people of Nagorno-Karabakh of that region, have lived for centuries. Here we see people fleeing; they don't feel comfortable that they would be secure. Are they able to go back if later after the fighting is passed? Is there a confidence you could return?…This dispute, this is a change, this isn't a peace agreement. It's a change in the status quo. And we've seen in the Caucasus, and we've seen in this dispute in the past changes in the status quo. Armenia had great success on the battlefield in the mid 1990s. Now Azerbaijan has great success on the battlefield, too; it doesn't mean there won't be tensions remaining from this fighting. Today, as people are fleeing, and I think it's essential they were given a choice that people have to decide for themselves. Do you personally feel safe? You know, it's not a case of people should tell them ‘No, no, stay there, you must stay there.’ No, they need to have that choice. They don't feel safe. And to me that I have friends and acquaintances in a region, that does not surprise me. You just lived through a 10 month blockade. You just saw lightning military strike. You've seen what's happened in the past, with fighting in the 90s in 2020. (…). And now, with the collapse of the local authorities in Nagorno Karabakh, there's no one who the remaining population could turn to aside from Azerbaijani police," the retired US diplomat remarked. Cavanaugh emphasizes that if this is simply achieving the restoration of territory by military aims, Azerbaijan hasn't really achieved what was that reason or even what was Azerbaijan from the earlier time. "The earlier time Azerbaijan had a mix of population, it benefited from that mass. [Former Azerbaijani president, the late] Heydar Aliyev used to tell me in private that he liked going up to what he called [Karabakh capital] Khankendi/Stepanakert. This was a place he enjoyed the people live there together. There was a mix of population across the country, that the ideal in this region would have been a peaceful settlement that allowed that to move forward. Today we will have questions about this was done by force. What's next? Will there be an effort at some point in the future that fighting renews, fighting over Nagorno Karabakh, fighting over a corridor to connect Nakhichevan with Azerbaijan proper? I don't think there'll be a lot of confidence in an area where there's not a lot of confidence. It's hard to get investment. It's harder to get foreign investment in particular," Carey Cavanaugh stressed.