Yerevan /Mediamax/. NATO’s former Supreme Allied Commander Europe James Stavridis believes that the war in Artsakh "has significant implications for regional security, energy markets and the ambitions of Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan.”

“I”n my time at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, I visited both countries several times. Dislike and distrust permeated the environment. The two defense chiefs at the time hated each other, all that either man wanted to talk about was the duplicity and venality of the other. Unfortunately, each was accurately channeling the national view toward their neighbor in the Caucasus. Neither side seemed willing to give an inch,” he said in the op-ed for Bloomberg.

“Over the four years I was at NATO, there were a number of half-hearted military thrusts by the Azeris, which were easily stopped by the Armenians. Our intelligence assessments found that the Armenians were almost certain to win if things came seriously to blows,” Stavridis noted.

“What is particularly dangerous in this latest flare-up is that Turkey and Russia are strongly backing different horses. The Turks dislike the Armenians and support their fellow Muslims in Azerbaijan. (In Armenia, memories of massacres by the Ottoman Turks over a century ago remain a significant factor in national thinking.) Russia has a formal defense treaty and warm military-to-military relations with Armenia. Bear in mind that the other nations adjacent to the fighting are ever-unstable Georgia and one of America’s most determined enemies, Iran. And that oil-rich Azerbaijan - with 7 billion barrels of proven reserves and large amounts of natural gas - has vulnerable pipelines that run as close as 10 miles from the Armenian border.

Washington is utterly distracted by the upcoming election. Turkey and Russia are on opposite sides (as they are in Syria and Libya as well). And the European Union is absorbed by the Brexit endgame and tensions at sea in the eastern Mediterranean between Greece and Turkey. NATO, which still has partnerships with Armenia and Azerbaijan, says “both sides should immediately cease hostilities” and there is “no military solution to this conflict,” but offers no concrete proposal,” Stavridis observed.

“The chances of a peaceful settlement seem bleak. A new version of the Minsk group that would include Turkey (Turkey is actually a member of the Minsk Group – Mediamax) could build confidence for a deal. Putin is close to the leaders of both countries, although Russia tilts strongly to fellow Christian Orthodox Armenia. Perhaps the U.S., Russia and Turkey, working together, could convince the two sides to turn away from the catastrophic path they are headed down,” he concludes.