High level talks on Karabakh conflict resolution concluded on July 17th and July 18th in Moscow. Armenian and Azerbaijani sides didn’t comment much. The OSCE Minsk group mediators sounded disappointed, even if they tried to accurately conceal that with phrases like “very open discussion took place” and “there was no progress, but there was not step back either”. It seems like the reason for failure in progress was Armenia’s stance. There was a serious backlash in Armenia following the release of Madrid principles by the Presidents of OSCE Minsk group co-chairing countries at the G8 meeting in Italy. Calls demanding resignation of Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian and reversal of policy on Karabakh by ARF-Dashnaktsutyuniun, criticism from Karabakh Ministry of Foreign Affairs, were followed by Nalbandian’s statement, which made clear, that there is hardly any point in the upcoming negotiations in Moscow. Interestingly, it seemed from the side, that much of this halabaloo on the Armenian side was carefully staged by the authorities ahead of the negotiations. It seems there was pressure on them and they needed this backlash to adopt a more hardline stance. The question than remains – why all this circus? Why don’t they just say – we don’t need no negotiations?