The time seems to have come for Armenia to get sincere regarding Artsakh. The masquerade is over, the masks are laid aside, and the game is becoming explicit. The West does not conceal its goal to push Russia out of the South Caucasus- at this stage only from there, and to block Iran from the north, cutting it off from Moscow. Russia and Iran are already becoming strategic allies and are entering into even deeper military cooperation, while Turkey, the "prodigal son," is returning to the arms of the West.

The Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict and the Artsakh issue should be viewed from this standpoint. In Brussels, the West proposes to carry out the supply of Artsakh through Aghdam, that is, to take the most decisive step for the "integration" of Artsakh with Azerbaijan. And how do Russia and Iran treat those schemes? Here, too, they started talking without diplomatic pretenses.

Iran's Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei on international affairs and a former Minister of Foreign Affairs under Presidents Khamenei and Rafsanjani,  published an exclusive article, where he calls on Russia and Iran to be vigilant, stressing that any negligence in the Caucasus can become a pretext for invasions from different countries. He warned about the growing influence of the US and its allies, stating that they will try to increase the tension in the sensitive region of the South Caucasus, which will endanger the security interests of Russia and Iran.

Velayati warned against oversimplifying the problems in the region, stressing that neglecting the South Caucasus may lead to the spread of influence to the North Caucasus, the Caspian Sea, and its neighboring countries. "Our Russian partners should be careful and know that any slightest negligence in the Caucasus will make it a place for invasion and rivalry among different countries and ill-intending parties that would attack the interests of Russia and the Islamic Republic of Iran," he wrote.

After Velayati's article, the response of the Russian Foreign Ministry was heard. "We are ready to organize a tripartite meeting of foreign ministers in Moscow in the near future to discuss the ways of implementing the agreements reached at a high level, including the topic of agreeing on a peace treaty, which may be followed by an Armenian-Russian-Azerbaijani summit in Moscow to sign the aforementioned document."

The Russian party also called on Azerbaijan to take immediate steps to open the Lachin Corridor, to restore the bilateral unhindered movement of citizens, vehicles and cargo, as well as to restore the energy supply. "We think that under these conditions, the responsibility for the fate of the Karabakh Armenian population should not be placed on third countries. We proceed from the fact that clear guarantees of the rights and security of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians should become an inseparable part of this agreement, as well as the steady implementation of the entire complex of tripartite agreements between Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia," said the Russian Foreign Ministry's response.

The struggle for the South Caucasus, between the West on the one hand, and Russia and Iran on the other, is entering the stage of an acute conflict. How much this struggle will intensify depends on a number of circumstances, but the main issue is which alliance will the current government of Armenia side with, Armenian or Turkish-Azerbaijani?