Yerevan /Mediamax/. Director of the Сarnegie Moscow Center Dmitri Trenin thinks that Turkey and Russia "are reluctant to fight each other”.

Dmitri Trenin said to Carnegie Europe that “the question that has preoccupied me since September 27, is this: Is war possible between Russia and Turkey?”.

“This unavoidably leads to a follow-up question: Should Turkey attack Armenia, and should Russia choose to defend Armenia, its Collective Security Treaty Organization ally, will this activate the North Atlantic Treaty?

It in turn reminds me of a warning issued to Ankara in the fall of 1991 by the last Soviet minister of defense, Yevgeny Shaposhnikov: “if you intervene in Karabakh, you’ll provoke World War III”. My conviction today is that this fateful step will be avoided, and Russia and Turkey will avoid a direct military collision, possibly to the regret of some third parties.

“With regard the peace question, the answer is: not in the foreseeable future. Complete military victory by Azerbaijan, the stronger party, is impossible without Turkey’s massive intervention. Armenia cannot make Azerbaijan accept the status quo forever-and certainly not without large-scale and direct Russian support. Turkey and Russia, however, are reluctant to fight each other, and Russia also values its generally friendly relations with Azerbaijan”, Trenin thinks.