Azerbaijan’s policy of rejecting Western platforms also harms Azerbaijani society.
Azerbaijan’s policy of rejecting Western platforms continues, becoming stricter and taking on new shades. It is also evidenced by the statement of the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan in response to the statements made by French President Emmanuel Macron during the joint press conference with RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
On February 21, Emmanuel Macron announced during a joint press conference with RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Paris. “The recent incidents in Syunik prove that the danger of escalation remains real. France regrets that an Azerbaijani was injured due to the shooting on February 12, which was also accepted by the Armenian leadership with transparency. Still, France expresses regret for the inappropriate retaliatory strike of Azerbaijan, due to which RA had four victims and one injured. France will continue supporting efforts aimed at a peaceful stability.”
Emmanuel Macron also announced: “We also call on Azerbaijan to comply with the decision of the International Court of Justice of November 17, 2023, according to which Azerbaijan must ensure that those persons who left Nagorno-Karabakh from September 19, 2023, and wish to return, be able to do it safely, without hindrance and quickly.
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Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a rather harsh response. “We strongly condemn the baseless claims made by French President Emmanuel Macron during a joint press conference with the Armenian Prime Minister in Paris on February 21, 2024, against Azerbaijan, regarding the unilateral defense of Armenia. France, which for almost 30 years has not spoken about the violated rights of Azerbaijanis expelled from their territories and subjected to mass murders, it is inappropriate to talk about the rights and safety of Armenians who left the territory of Azerbaijan voluntarily and without any violence.”
Earlier, when the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe decided not to ratify the credentials of the Azerbaijani delegation, according to which the Azerbaijani delegation was removed from the PACE for at least one year, after that, the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, announced that Azerbaijan is considering the procedure for withdrawing from the Council of Europe (CoE). The President of Azerbaijan also announced: “Azerbaijan can also refuse to recognize the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights.”
Azerbaijan outside international law
Ilham Aliyev’s recent statements are more challenging and nervous than the others, and sometimes, they do not fit within the limits of diplomatic ethics. He also referred to the work of the European Parliament, noting that “there is a group of very irresponsible people in the European Parliament who behave like maniacs. Their anti-Azerbaijani sentiments and statements cross the boundaries of normal human psychological state.”
On September 26, 2023, after the meeting of Armen Grigoryan, Secretary of the Security Council of Armenia, and Hikmet Hajiyev, Assistant to the President of Azerbaijan for Foreign Relations, in Brussels, many people thought that a peace treaty would be signed by the end of the year, but, on the contrary, in the months that followed, Azerbaijan drastically reduced its involvement in the negotiations on western platforms. Meetings in Granada, Brussels, and Washington were canceled. Official Baku continues to reject Western platforms consistently and accuses Western structures of not being neutral and protecting Armenia.
The Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan issued a statement the other day that it considered the EU observation mission in Armenia an anti-Azerbaijani propaganda tool. Markus Ritter, the head of the EU mission in Armenia, had to respond to this statement during a press conference in Yerevan. “We conduct patrolling tours along the border and bring visitors to those areas to show them the state of the conflict, not to spy on the territory of Azerbaijan. Since we are not allowed to do the same on the territory of Azerbaijan, our only possibility is to show the situation of the borderline on the Armenian side. We have been doing it from the beginning and will continue to do it next year.”
In the end, who does this policy of Azerbaijan benefit? Azerbaijan, declaring at the level of the country’s top leadership that it can also refuse to recognize the jurisdiction of the ECHR, demonstrates once again that Azerbaijan, to put it mildly, does not take into account international law, effectively putting itself beyond the limits of responsibility of this law. The non-implementation of the decisions of international courts also evidences this. The only fact is that the more frequent the EU’s statements aimed at improving relations with Armenia become, the harsher the rhetoric of Azerbaijan and Russia against Western structures and Armenia.
Moreover, Azerbaijan’s boycott of Western platforms even hints that they will not recognize the jurisdiction of the ECHR. However, many will say that it harms Azerbaijan’s reputation first of all, it also harms Armenia because Azerbaijan keeps itself so far away from the West, from the structures, it shows all the more that it is not afraid of pressures nor Western sanctions, nor does it want to reckon with international law. After Ilham Aliyev’s statement about considering a procedure outside the Council of Europe, representatives of the Azerbaijani society, especially the youth, began discussing social networks, expressing concern about such a possible decision. For example, you can read posts about how much Azerbaijani youth will suffer, especially in education.
There are concerns that many dreams of studying in Europe through programs like Erasmus; if Azerbaijan leaves the CE, their chances will decrease, and the question of moving to Europe to work and live will be complicated. Also, young people are worried that there are not enough discussions about this in Azerbaijani society. Therefore, taking all this into account, the policy of rejecting Western platforms conducted by Azerbaijan is potentially significantly harming the society of Azerbaijan itself.
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The publication was produced within the project “Competing Narratives” implemented by Media Initiatives Center and n-ost.
