Member of NA Foreign Affairs Commission Samvel Farmanyan about the intensifying situation on the border
– How can you explain the fact that Azerbaijan keeps the Armenian-Azerbaijani and Karabakh-Azerbaijani borders intensified for such a long time? This time like at this time last year, Azerbaijan opened fire on the border villages of Armenia trying to intimidate the civilians, and we have injured and also killed. Whom and what eventually does Azerbaijan want to say?
– I am sorry for the human losses because of this tension. It is the most irreversible. Azerbaijan has never hidden its approach to solving the problem militarily, if necessary, by accumulating great military potential. At times, such intensification on the border, by using already new and heavy weapons, on the one hand, is aimed at sending a message to the global community, and first of all, to the intermediary countries that the conflict is not frozen at all, but it needs a solution (by saying a solution, they, of course, understand what they visualize, which is not realistic), on the other hand, they are trying thereby to instil the feeling of danger and loses of the upcoming war to the Armenian people, expecting lessening of the postures, and also to show that the intermediary countries and the international community are unable to have a real impact on the war prospect of development of the events.
Let’s put aside the fact that in these developments Azerbaijani society is no longer a factor, hence it no longer exists in the Azerbaijani authorities’ calculations besides using its own soldiers as a flash of the cannon. As long as the intermediary countries that act on behalf of the international community are unable or reluctant to impose the solutions to Azerbaijan that can prevent such incidents, the Armenian side remains what it is doping today – to prevent the encroachments of the enemy, to cause disproportionate damage and once again draw the attention of the international community to Azerbaijan’s lawless actions.
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From this prospective, we welcome the recent announcement by the Artsakh Ministry of Defense and the actions following it. Indeed, we should consider the fact that what Ilham Aliyev presents in his public statements regarding the prospects of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement has nothing to do with the actual possible arrangements discussed at the negotiation table, and with such intensifications, the leader of Azerbaijan, perhaps thinks that he toughens and reinforces his positions prior to each new round of negotiations.
– The co-chairs again were limited to purely condemning: this time, it was good that the accusation was a little bit targeted. Under this geopolitical situation, what are the risks of the international community’s continual passive stance and Azerbaijan’s growing aggression?
– The time has come for the co-chairing countries to assert that condemning statements are important, moreover, the targeted statements, but not sufficient. The mechanism of investigating the border incidents should be at least imposed to Azerbaijan, about which all of them – the entire international community – had agreed upon except for Azerbaijan. Unfortunately, it’s not done. On the other hand, I am far from the idea, and in the face of the intermediary countries, we are dealing with such countries that do not possess full information as to which side, when, how and for what specific purpose the ceasefire regime is violated. It goes by itself that the interests of very huge geopolitical players are crossed in our region, and not everything that is due to our own will and desires.
The fact that the Minsk Group co-chair is the only format where Russia and the United States are working together, it gives some grounds for optimism that they will manage to lead the problem to a peaceful and negotiated solution, based on realism and basic essence of the conflict. I worry about another fact. The rival shelled the territories of the Republic of Armenia. Armenia is a CSTO member state, and we have the right to anticipate a more active reaction by CSTO for such cases. Our CSTO partners should realize that apart of the political and diplomatic vocabulary, such inactiveness surely does not increase our people’s trust in the practicability of this military-political structure, to which we are one of the full founding members. Here, too, let us speak openly, the feeble statements made from time to time, we see that they do not reach the target, Azerbaijan continues its impudent behavior. Show me another military-political alliance member state whose territory is shelled by another state and this Alliance has not reacted as appropriate. I do not know such an example, and the power of the military-political alliances is just in this.
As long as everything is not as it should be, the Armenian side remains doing what has no alternative – to cause double response losses to the rival, trying to make them understand that the military way is not only a solution but it also can be a boomerang to hit the Azerbaijan President, whose father was able to seize the power in Azerbaijan after this country’s subsequent territorial losses, and it is not the case that it happened without the silent consent of great international players.
Nelly GRIGORYAN
