Life wouldn’t be so sad and dull if countries located on a tiny territory named South Caucasus were wise enough to mutually respect each other’s sovereignty, and realizing the only truth that they will always live side by side, reached or at least tried to reach a consensus in problem-solving.

In this regard, words of the Russian thinker Kozma Prutkov are excellently to the point: “People would not stop living together even if they disperse.”

We will not dive into a historic excursus into interstate relations of the regions’ countries, namely Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, relations that always bear the factor of Turkey and Iran as well. History, being a subjective science, is characterized by huge flexibility; debates on historic facts may turn into an endless round resulting, at worst, in a vicious chain in which these countries have been whirling throughout the last decade.

The region is rich in various conflicts and civil wars, Karabakh issue being one of its “hot” frozen conflicts.

Parties of the conflict, each of which, by the way, individually supports the peace settlement of the issue, never managed to reach any agreement for the past 20 years despite all efforts of the international players, the international organizations, superpowers, etc.

Each time an agreement seems to be looming up, Azerbaijan manages to use a trick, not always an intricate or successful one, which, however, eventually hinders settlement of the conflict. Sometimes our “good friend”, blinded by its own smartness, flies into a passion forgetting that it does not have anything. And here again, Kozma Prutkov comes to have said back a century ago: “Buy a picture first, and the frame second”.

Long and futile negotiations lasting nearly 20 years exhausted key mediators, trying their patience day by day and pressing their keen minds to work harder to reach a much wanted “outcome”.

The last failure of the international mediators, particularly the OSCE Minsk Group and superpowers U.S., Russia and France was the Kazan meeting in June 2011. The intermediaries issued quite tough statements for several months literally forcing the parties sign an agreement. So, what happened in Kazan? Azerbaijan once again opted for a destructive path coming to Kazan with 10 new demands. Official Baku is pursuing the same policy with regard to taking the snipers off the contact line, refusing various offers by the mediators.

In early 2012 another trilateral meeting of Medvedev, Sargsyan and Aliyev took place in the Russian resort city of Sochi. Nobody expected anything from the meeting because Azerbaijan had fully discredited itself in the eyes of the public, especially in Armenia, while after Kazan Medvedev lost the authority he used to enjoy earlier.

However, coming as a big surprise for the skeptics, the meeting in Sochi proved quite positive; even the standard joint statement indicated a gleam of hope: “Participants of the meeting expressed readiness to speed up the work on general principles so that to proceed to development of a legally binding peace agreement basing on this,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov informed.

The process slowed down, and everybody’s waiting for further developments; here Azerbaijan’s “big brother”, Turkey interferes…Reporter of the Turkish Milat daily Erdal Shimshek published an analytical article on February 21 on Iran’s alleged threat to Turkey and Azerbaijan. By comparing some “details”, the journalist comes to the conclusion that it was not Armenia who “occupied” Karabakh in fact, but the Iranians through Armenians. In view of tensions between Turkey, Azerbaijan and Iran and peacefully developing Armenian-Iranian relations, one gets the impression that Turkey and Azerbaijan aim “to kill two birds with one stone”.

First, the article refers to Iran with which, apart from historic issues these countries have new problems today: gas supply, ethnic wars, installation of NATO anti-missile defence system in Turkey, etc. Second, publication of similar articles by the Turkish media provides Azerbaijan room for further propaganda against Armenia and Karabakh.

As an Iranian source told a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter, this is a tiny thing not even worth being commented upon. Iran will continue to pursue its balanced policy with regard to its neighbours.

So, as Kozma Prutkov said. “When casting pebbles into water, look at the ripples being formed thereby. Otherwise this activity will be an empty amusement. Better speak little but to the point.”

In pursuit of its policy, Azerbaijan risks losing the little fragile respect and trust others manage to maintain towards it. And development of the country (Azerbaijan) requires implementation of domestic political reforms rather than feeding the people with anti-Armenian propaganda and instilling hatred towards the neighbour; As Prutkov said, “All that grows is not cut”.

Following so many efforts, the moment will come when Baku demonstrates political will and “plugs up the propaganda fountain to let it have a rest”. One should not “run to extremes: a person wishing to take their meal too late risks to have it on the next day.”

So, with this positive remark as a conclusion, we’d advice Baku re-read Prutkov’s works or just “If you want to be happy, be so.”

Kozma Prutkov is literary pseudonym under which Alexey Tolstoy (with largest contribution), and his cousins Alexey, Vladimir and Alexander Zhemchuzhnikovs (this was actually their collective pen-name), as well as Pyotr Yershov published articles in Sovremennik and Iskra magazines in 1850-60s.

Satiric verses and aphorisms of Kozma Prutkov, as well his very image mocked at mental stagnation, political “loyalty” and parodied literary imitation.