Another «recipe» for regulating the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has been published by Thomas de Vaal: "The Karabakh Trap. Threats and Dilemmas of the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict. Rough Draft for Discussion." It was published in the notorious website Mediaforum.az, which «hit the big time» as the spreader of the fabricated story of "selling Russian military hardware to Armenia".

It is boring and unpleasant to read the whole material that counts to 20 pages, especially when behind it distinctly show the ears of British Petroleum and those of many other organizations that, roughly speaking, have been living on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict for 20 years already. The report is so pro-Azerbaijani that it gives the impression it was written in Baku, not in London. By the way, it may in fact be so. Judge yourselves.

«Today the defeated party feels more and more confident and is impatiently waiting for the change of status-quo in their favour. The present situation, in which in addition to the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region there are seven more Azerbaijani regions fully or partially occupied by the Armenian troops, cannot last endlessly. "I don't want my son to inherit this problem, that is why I am for the war," said an educated Azeri of 30, and the number of advocates of this view is rapidly rising». By the way, this kind of references to certain Armenians and Azeri are typical examples of this sort of journalism which we mistakenly call western style.

But let us go on. «Armenians take Nagorno-Karabakh as an Armenian territory liberated from Azerbaijan. The young generation that grows up in NKR and in Armenia does not know any other NK region and always hears various statements claiming that the seven occupied Azerbaijani territories are in reality «liberated territories» that on no account should be given away. But Armenia keeps on suffering economically and the international community criticizes her for the conflict. "Karabakh is a stick with which we are always hit on the face," noted an Armenian official». Even if we do not pay attention to the writing style, in fact we have been hearing and reading it all for more than a year. In this connection one of the joint round tables can be recalled, when the representatives of Azerbaijan dwelt on their oil for so long that Armenians could not stand it any longer and asked quite reasonably: "Do you have anything else except oil?"

Yet, let us continue with the citations from de Vaal. «It is an undisputable fact that Azerbaijan is growing thanks to its rich oil reserves. But no one knows what future the country awaits with such dynamic changes in view. Its international reputation is much weighty today than it used to be about ten years ago, and public figures of Azerbaijan today compensate the deficiency of respect which, in their opinion, they used to feel for years. In the words of an international representative that now lives in Baku "At the meetings with diplomats, foreign parliamentarians and NGO representatives Azeri officials make statements like "You need us more than we need you" or "Don't use that tone of voice when talking to us"». On June 26 a grandiose military parade was organized in Baku. It was the first parade since 1992 and gave Azerbaijan an opportunity to show the whole world its newly-obtained military equipment.

After the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline was put into operation in 2006 Azerbaijani oil profits rapidly rose. According to the latest forecasts of British Petroleum, if additional investments are made in Azeri-Chirag-Gyuneshli "the peak of oil production will be reached not in 2012 as it was forecasted before, but in six-seven years' time." But the interesting point is that the author also notes drop of oil price and world crisis. Thus, Azerbaijan is either on another planet or it does not really make out anything it writes about.

The situation in Armenia is bad and we know it ourselves. «Armenia spent most of 2008 in the clutches of political crisis. The ongoing negative echoes of the Presidential Elections held in February and the tragic violence of March 1 in Yerevan led to a split in the society and still remain a problem for the new President Serzh Sargsyan». It comes out that it is democracy to disperse and prohibit demonstrations in Baku, ban foreign radio stations, arrest and beat journalists, whereas dispersal of protesters who had become unruly after the ten-day tolerance of the authorities is considered to be violence. If it is so, de Vaal is right. Unfortunately, human rights advocates use the victims of March 1 in their own favour, overlooking the chief offender of the occurrence. However, all this is only indirectly related to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Let us refer to another citation from the British «expert». «During the year of 2008 universal support of territorial integrity of Azerbaijan has become a signal indicating that unlike Kosovo NKR cannot receive recognition and her status will remain fragile until a peaceful agreement is signed», writes de Vaal.

As a matter of principle, in our opinion de Vaal should have begun his publication exactly with this statement. Such kind of experts are unable to realize or acknowledge that NKR is a fully sovereign state. NKR is a reality; it is the Artsakh community which has its own world outlook - tough and appropriate. How is it possible to deal with the region for years and not understand most obvious things or at least study the history? According to Karabakh experts not one empire was overthrown because of having underestimated Artsakh. So, why there should be made an exception for the West? Other countries at least had flair to recognize that Artsakh is a subject and it has its say. Even the USSR, whose power and potential was beyond all comparison with other «pretenders», realized that and created an autonomous region. Thus, it must be admitted that the attempt of British Petroleum failed and it was quite predictable.

We should only add that not taking part in the OSCE Minsk Group efforts to regulate the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Great Britain is trying to force her interests through various organizations whose alleged aim is peacekeeping.