Aliyev-Sargsyan meeting in June will be decisive
Aghasi Yenokyan, Director of the Armenian Center for Political and International Studies, is convinced that the loss of the territories will be used in the pre-election campaign against Serzh Sargsyan. Note that after the meeting with Ilham Aliyev in Vienna, RA President Serzh Sargsyan in an interview with Armenian TV companies on board the plane made some clarifications about the scope of losses of territories by Armenia after the four-day war. In particular, he stated, “If we measure in meters, then I must say that the Armenian armed forces that had 800 000 hectares as a security zone have lost 800 hectares, it is one thousandth. But note that the Azerbaijani side had one dead and two injured for each hectare. Compare and see how many casualties they would give for occupying those eight hundred thousand.” “Aravot” asked Mr. Yenokyan whether the loss of this one meter of land is not a major significance for us, Mr. Yenokyan replied, “I think that the loss of any one meter is dangerous for Serzh Sargsyan because there are already voices that these losses are used against him. The presidential campaign begins and the loss of even one meter will have a significant importance in purely political terms.” Aghasi Yenokyan is confident that the loss of territories will become a trump in the hands of those who want to come to power.
To our observation whether the agreements reached in Vienna pertaining to monitoring and installation of investigation mechanism for the incidents will not hamper Armenia to bring back the territories lost in the war in April, Mr. Yenokyan replied, “These mechanisms will last a long time both organizational and technically until reaching them to the zone. So, we still have some time.” In response to our question of whether this agreement contains real guarantees, or the same scenario will be repeated when once President of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev had obtained agreement in Paris and make another statement on returning to Baku, Mr. Yenokyan found it difficult to make predictions, but reminded the statement by the Deputy Chief of the Staff of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev that it is just the offer of the co-chairs, and they see no commitment. According to the political analyst, this is already an iffy approach by them: they have not reject but have not confirmed. Aghasi Yenokyan is convinced that Azerbaijan, in consultation with Russia, is waiting for the developments of the situation, “This situation is at hand to Russia. It does not want these devices to be installed on the border.” Mr. Yenokyan cannot make long-term predictions about the relative pause: he only thinks that this pause will last until the meeting of the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan in June when it will become clear what will be the course of the developments.
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
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