“Frozen conflicts” hinder NATO's enlargement to South Caucasus

News.Az interviews research fellow at Saint Petersburg State University, political expert Andrei Belonogov.

In recent years, one of the tasks of Russia in the sphere of security was to prevent NATO's expansion eastward. This task was successfully accomplished in the South Caucasus - neither Azerbaijan nor Armenia nor Georgia can even be hypothetically considered as candidates for NATO membership until problems of Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia and Abkhazia are resolved.

As cynical as it may sound, presence of territorial disputes and "frozen conflicts" in the region is some kind of guarantee for NATO’s non-expansion in the South Caucasus, which is beneficial to Moscow. Of course, process of "reset" of Russia-America relations is going on at the moment while relations with NATO are improving.

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