A conflict not remote

Protesters hold up an Azerbaijani flag during a pro-Armenian demonstration in Athens.YORGOS KARAHALIS / AP

The Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict in Upper Karabakh is on the way to becoming a serious global confrontation between Russia and Turkey.

Presidents Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, marked by the respective imperial pasts of their countries, practice an expansive policy of self-affirmation and feed the

of their fellow citizens with a nationalist rhetoric riddled with myths.

The course of Moscow and Ankara does not help to solve the real problems - security, economic, political and territorial - of the two communities that today face each other in the complex multi-ethnic environment of the Caucasus.

In the current phase of escalation of hostilities, the overwhelming victory of one of the parties would result in new killings and ethnic cleansing.

But whatever the results, the current outbreak shows that it is not possible to return to the

force since the ceasefire of 1994. Limiting itself to formal exhortations to the parties to sit back at the table is irresponsible, frivolous. and ineffective.

In their maximalism, the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Nikol Pashinián and Ilham Aliev, have not been capable of a compromise based on mutual concessions that integrates the interests of both parties.

But Pashinian and Aliyev are also hostages of their political elites, who condition their room for maneuver.

For this reason, the conflict requires a joint international effort that should be led by countries far from the interests of the area and accepted as mediators by Azerbaijanis and Armenians.

Today, the role of mediation cannot fall on Russia and Turkey because their current leaders, Putin and Erdogan, have shown that their selfishness, their chimeras and the idealized and messianic vision of themselves predominate over their sense of responsibility for the world.

As it is, Upper Karabakh needs real diplomacy to achieve a road map that will allow the coexistence of Armenians and Azerbaijanis.

To be viable, the solution must be able to be exhibited as a gain by the two communities and, in their search, the experience accumulated in the arrangements that ended the disintegrating wars in Yugoslavia can be useful.

Armenia and Azerbaijan would have to return to the agreed principles on Upper Karabakh, approved by the OSCE ministerial conference in Madrid in 2007, which combined territorial integrity with the principle of self-determination.

To arrive at a solution, which may not be ideal, will require skill, will, time, patience, an ethical sense and perhaps peacemakers - which in no case should be Russian or Turkish.

The international community cannot close its eyes and ignore the conflict in that remote

of Upper Karabakh.