According to political scientist Armen Vardanyan, there may be several reasons for Azerbaijan’s attack in Sotk. In the conversation with “Aravot” he said. “Usually, before the meetings of the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Aliyev always resorted to such provocations both during Serzh Sargsyan’s time and now, during Nikol Pashinyan’s administration.
Through these provocations, he is trying to put pressure on Armenia before important negotiations and extract some things, especially he thinks that by impoverishing Armenia on the battlefield, it can extract important things from it at the negotiating table. According to Armen Vardanyan, another reason could be discrediting the European observers.
He clarified. “Azerbaijan and Russia took the fact of deployment of European civilian observers along the border of Armenia and Azerbaijan extremely hard. At the beginning of this year, when it became apparent that the European Union decided to deploy civilian observers from Russia and Azerbaijan here for two years, there were harsh statements against that decision. It is obvious that Baku and Moscow do not like this and are also trying to discredit these civil observers in various ways.”
Armen Vardanyan responded to our assertion that they are unarmed and are not monitoring the situation and not making targeted statements: “First of all, they are just observers, not peacekeepers. That is why they are unarmed. Then no one said that they will come to fight for us. They write reports and send them to Brussels.
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Announcements are also not part of their duties. Unfortunately, many people in RA have wrong expectations regarding the deployment of these observers. It seems to many that there will be no more incidents at the border if observers come. It seems to many that observers should make a statement. They write their reports, send them to Brussels, and the European Union makes decisions based on them. So, we don’t have to wait for their statements either.”
According to Armen Vardanyan, these observers are generally a restraining factor for Azerbaijan. Referring to the statistics, he said. “If we look at the statistics, skirmishes on the border have decreased considerably.
As a result of last year’s September aggression, we had 227 victims in two days. After that, when European observers were brought here by the efforts of Armenian diplomacy, during these 6-7 months there were less than a dozen victims, 4 of them due to the incident near Tegh village. So, deploying those observers here is a deterrent factor for Azerbaijan.”
“Yes, Russia wants a corridor from Armenia that will pass through the territory of Armenia, and Armenia will not have control over that corridor. Especially since, as a result of the Ukrainian war, Russia has been deprived of many roads, its trade ties with Europe have almost been reduced to zero, and it needs new routes, communications, and one of them, I suppose, should go through Russia to Azerbaijan and from Azerbaijan to through the Syunik Region to Nakhichevan, and from there to Turkey.
But Aliyev insists, and Russia echoes him, which agrees, that the representatives of the Bodies of the Border Guard Service of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation should control this corridor; Armenia should not have control over that communication path. Armen Vardanyan answered the question: what developments to expect in the coming days. “Azerbaijan may start new provocations before the negotiations. There will be no significant progress in the meetings scheduled in Moscow and Chișinău.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
“Aravot” daily, 13.05.2023
