Time to call a spade a spade
The closer are the days of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s visit to Washington, the more he becomes nervous. In recent days, we witness unprecedented nervous outbursts. Aliyev, congratulating his own people on Novruz holiday, as the main reason for the Nagorno-Karabakh unresolved conflict, indicated Armenia’s “non-constructive policy” and then proceeded to the OSCE Minsk Group, noting that without it the Azerbaijani people do not believe in the activities of co-chairs. Aliyev reminded the co-chairs’ negative attitude to the disputable resolutions on “occupied territories” of Nagorno-Karabakh and the Sarsang Reservoir discussed and voted at the PACE in January, noting the co-chairs’ activities completely undermined this belief. “As you remember, one of those resolutions that referred to the Sarsang reservoir was passed in the plenary session while for the adoption of a second resolution, four votes were not enough. Our analyzes showed that these two resolutions have no problems with the adoption as there was the support of the PACE deputies…. However, the flagrant interference of the Minsk Group in the Council of Europe’s work has led to this unpleasant situation. The mediators in the conflict visited the Council of Europe and there put pressure on the organization’s leadership, so a second resolution was not adopted, as it supposedly creates a problem for resolving the conflict. “The same signals are sent not only to Strasbourg but also to the ministries of foreign affairs of many European countries. We perceive this as a provocation,” said the Azerbaijani President. He is upset that such “messages” are not only a co Strasbourg but also foreign media in Europe. “I’m saying this so that the Azerbaijani people once again know that the conflict remains unresolved not only because of Armenia’s position. It is unfair and a manifestation of double standards,” said Aliyev reminding his famous thesis: for the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the country and the army must become even stronger. In fact, Baku is already officially calling the co-chairs “instigators”.
Months ago, Aliyev was accusing the mediators of Islamophobia for the posture of the co-chairs pertaining to the anti-Armenian resolutions in the PACE, saying, “Today, I am talking about it openly, so the public will also know. Theirs is the greatest role that the issue is not resolved. Why? Because there are double standards. What is the reason? You ask, but there is no answer. It is also a kind of tactic. When the question is not comfortable, they don’t respond. But we know the answer – double standards. Here the religious factor plays the role. We are Muslims, so we are treated from the position of double standards. Especially in the current period, when Islamophobia in Europe reached a peak.”
It has been a few months since the discussion of the formation of mechanisms to prevent the border incidents proposed by the mediators in underway. Now, instead of submitting its response, Baku is engaged in jugglery. Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov has said that Armenia aims to harm the negotiation process on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict by taking various provocative steps, in particular, by escalating the tension on the contact line of the troops and along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border”. Then Mammadyarov added that introducing technical issues on the agenda such as the investigation of the incident is a conscious move by Armenia “to divert the attention from the conflict settlement.”
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In his words, “the investigation of the incidents can be considered only within the framework of the withdrawal of the Armenian military forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.” First of all, the mentioned proposal was offered by the mediators rather than Armenia. The Armenian side, unlike Azerbaijani side, has accepted this proposal. While, as we can see, this proposal by the co-chairs has angered official Baku so much that the Azerbaijani authorities are ready to consider the instrument of investigating the incidents an issue of a technical character presented by Armenia. But there is one more remarkable circumstance in all of this. If we take out the fragment of the subsequent role of “showing himself a hero” before his own people from the portion of aggression in Aliyev’s nervousness, then we see that the Azerbaijani authorities do not have the same mistrust especially towards one of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing countries. I mean the Russia-Azerbaijan relations. On the contrary, the expectations from Moscow are always more, in this case, everything is smooth and no complaints. Why? Russia is also in the OSCE Minsk Group format and at least officially joins all the statements of the OSCE Minsk Group format, isn’t it? In his interview with Russian “Kommersant”, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov, referring to the relations with Russia in the sphere of military-technical cooperation, noted that they were advancing successfully based on the mutually beneficial cooperation. Baku assures that there were no problems with regard to the payments and the rumors that there are unresolved financial issues is wrong, “The problem is that it is necessary to introduce amendments to technical parameters of a number of specific types of weaponry. In Dmitry Rogozin’s words, this will be done in the nearest time,” – assured Mammadyarov.
Baku has sent a protest note to Russia for selling weapons to Armenia. It seemed that Russia and Azerbaijan could escalate the relations but it appeared that there are no unsolvable problems here too. Nevertheless, according to Mammadyarov, Russian Foreign Ministry perceives the accent of their note correctly, “The content of the note was the request to Russia when supplying arms Armenia, to keep in mind that it should not find its way to the occupied Azerbaijani territories. End user rules apply to such kind of supplies. If the end user were Armenia, the issue would not go beyond the framework of bilateral relations between Moscow and Yerevan. But when the weapons find their way to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, it is a different matter.”
When the reporter informed Mammadyarov that in any case this weapon will appear in the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, he noted, “Given that Russia recognizes the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan, the presence of Russian weapons in the occupied territories is completely without logic.” In early April, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will leave for Azerbaijan to discuss the bilateral cooperation and the Nagorno-Karabakh problem. With certainty, Lavrov will hurry to find out from Aliyev the requirements and the expectations of Washington the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process during the visit to the US so that to continue creating new complexes with joint efforts for the activities of the OSCE Minsk Group.
Generally, the time to call a spade a spade has come. Azerbaijan has left itself out of the field to negotiate and dialogue with Armenia long ago. Armenia’s neighbor intimidates and blackmails the international community, the Azerbaijani authorities are engaged in anti-Armenia, militancy propaganda and disseminating lies inside the country. This is a peculiar terror against the Armenian side and the peace effort, and it is time for the international community to think over in this direction too.
EMMA GABRIELYAN, “Aravot” daily
