Toivo Klaar, Designated European Union Special Representative for the South Caucasus
Dear Mr. Klaar,
The National Democratic Alliance finds the latest comments and interpretations by a number of Western officials, concerning Armenian-Azerbaijani relations and the resolution of the central issue of Artsakh, to be dangerous and counterproductive for a peaceful resolution and therefore absolutely unacceptable under the circumstances.
We are obliged to remind the co-chairing countries of the Minsk Group, as well as the European Union, that 120,000 Armenians of Artsakh are currently hostages under siege with imminent threat of genocidal ethnic cleansing. Moreover, the threat of genocide is amplified in the backdrop of US President Joe Biden’s 2021 April 24 commemoration address, where he reaffirmed the US commitment to prevent any attempt to repeat the Armenian Genocide ever again.
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Please note that the vast majority of the Armenian people do not accept and do not share the policy adopted by Nikol Pashinyan and his government concerning the resolution of the Artsakh issue and the ensuing peace treaty, followed by the forced demarcation and delimitation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani borders. On the contrary, we are sure that this policy of appeasement to the aggressor at all costs will not ensure lasting peace and prosperity in the region, but rather is fraught with a new war in the near future, which would be devastating to the Armenian statehood and genocidal for the Armenian people.
The threat of a new war is unavoidable considering the following facts:
a. the aggressor Azerbaijan has not been held responsible, but rather is being rewarded for its aggression by allowing it to impose unilateral terms
b. Russia has heavily armed Azerbaijan for years and is continuing to do so, thus undermining the military balance of power between Armenia and Azerbaijan, especially after the 44-day war unleashed in Artsakh in 2020 by the Russian-Azerbaijani-Turkish alliance
c. President Aliyev’s unceasing belligerent statements and ultimatums on a daily basis are becoming more and more intense, where he threatens to solve the problem militarily, if Armenia does not obey his demands. Considering the fact that Aliev’s regime has proven that it can resort to use of force and military aggression in order to solve the issue of Artsakh, in violation of its commitments to international structures and to the Minsk Group in particular, and the fact that it is a dictatorial regime where in Azerbaijan itself it has carried out and continues to carry out repressions against the ethnic minorities living there, and the fact that it continuously carries out numerous violations of human rights and freedoms of its citizens, for which it has more than once been condemned by the European Parliament, it is a given that Aliev will resort to use of force and military aggression once again in the near future.
Accordingly, the National Democratic Alliance believes that in the current situation, the West and the co-chairing countries of the Minsk Group, in particular the USA and France, in accordance with their commitments and taking into account the imminent danger of genocidal ethnic cleansing of the Armenian people in Artsakh through depopulation from their ancestral homeland, should reaffirm their willingness to resolve the issue not in favor of satisfying Aliev’s intent of military aggression, but through military-political intervention in the Armenian-Azerbaijani contact line in the form of deployment of international peacekeeping troops.
National Democratic Alliance continues to believe that the strategic interests of the West and Armenia in our region coincide, especially in the containment of the current aggressive authoritarian regimes of Turkey and Russia. However, we believe that without a sharp turn of Armenia’s foreign policy towards the West, we cannot ensure a stable and lasting military-political balance in the region.
We also realize that out of tactical interests, the West is trying to ensure a somewhat peaceful withdrawal of Russian armed forces from the region as soon as possible, which is possible only in conditions of stability and peace in the region, however it should be emphasized that the latter cannot happen at the expense of Armenian strategic interests.
Let us note once again that the necessary condition for the establishment of a stable security architecture is the establishment of a military-political balance, which unfortunately the current course of negotiations not only does not provide, but also creates conditions for a deepening imbalance, which is really fraught with the genocidal ethnic cleansing of the Armenian population of Artsakh, which in turn, will have existential consequences for the Armenian statehood.
The aforementioned possible conflict of interests creates real grounds for the outbreak of a major regional war, so the only guarantee is a realistic policy that would take into account the dictatorial nature of the regime established in Baku which would not be able to ensure the security and rights of Armenians without the presence of international peacekeeping forces.
Respecfully,
Council of the National Democratic Alliance
