Which country will take such a government seriously, and which enemy’s appetite will not increase in the presence of such a government?
Aliyev responded to Nikol Pashinyan’s speech in the National Assembly on April 18, just a few hours later. It turned out that Aliyev did not like the vague wording of Pashinyan’s speech. And even though Pashinyan’s speech was the speech of a wholly failed country’s leader, it was a “brilliant” speech of the government unconditionally agreeing to the conditions dictated by the opposing state, Aliyev decided to humiliate the State of Armenia as much as he will be allowed.
Aliyev immediately “countered” that Pashinyan’s statements were not enough. It turned out that Aliyev demanded Armenia to declare that “Karabakh is Azerbaijan,” although Pashinyan’s speech was about that.
Read also
Recalling Pashinyan’s statement, “Artsakh is Armenia, and that’s it,” Aliyev claims that it is time for the leader of Armenia to edit his statement. “Armenia, which used to say: “Karabakh is Armenia, and that’s it, today must repeat what we said: “Karabakh is Azerbaijan and an exclamation mark.” In other words, if he said “A,” he should also say “B,” Aliyev instructed.
It would be naive to think that the demands presented by the President of Azerbaijan to Pashinyan’s speech are only Baku’s expectations. Hours after Pashinyan’s speech on April 18, the Azerbaijani government propaganda tools distributed a whole list of demands to the Armenian side, adding that for official Baku to “take Pashinyan’s speech seriously,” the Armenian side needs to implement the following steps. Let’s count them. “Armenia’s unequivocal written recognition of Karabakh as the territory of Azerbaijan,” “refusal of the practice of using Armenian place names,” suspension of funding of Artsakh authorities, withdrawal of the R.A. armed forces, “establishment of a checkpoint on the border with Lachin region by the Armenian side,” the closing of “Artsakh representation” in Armenia, and termination of any political contacts with the illegal regime, ” “provision of the Zangezur Corridor by the conditions of the Tripartite Declaration,” “removal of the reference to the Declaration of Independence from the Constitution, where the territorial claims to Karabakh were fixed.”
The current government has brought the state of Armenia to this state. In this complex geopolitical atmosphere, even when the Armenian side had opportunities to maneuver and work with partners, the incompetent authorities of Armenia did not even have a benchmark in opposing Azerbaijan so that they could take advantage of it now and then so that they do not have to listen to Aliyev’s instructions and demands from Armenia day and night. Azerbaijan is already freely entering the sovereign territory of Armenia, seeing that there is no barrier.
And the Armenian side had time to strengthen itself in all those areas where the Azerbaijani side feels free today. Or was such a course of events not predictable? After all, these authorities still do not consider it necessary to explain to the Armenian people in an accessible language whether they have decided to demarcate and delimitate the border with Azerbaijan and then sign a peace agreement.
If so, why did they not prepare for it so Azerbaijan does not draw the “borders” it imagines? Or do they think Azerbaijan will leave immediately after signing the “peace agreement”? In terms of continuously belittling Armenia, which was defeated in the war, and showing to the whole world the inaction and incompetence of our state in terms of strategic development, the current authorities of Armenia are a brilliant example of how the state is drowning in the pit of continuous defeats, but whose government is exclusively occupied with one thing: its inaction and in the way of justifying all failures due to inability to blame everyone but himself.
Which country will take such a government seriously, and which enemy’s appetite will not increase in the presence of such a government?
Emma GABRIELYIAN
“Aravot” daily, 20.04.2023
