In an interview with Azerbaijani television in Nakhchivan, Ilham Aliyev made a number of statements, including about Armenia. A significant part of them was hardly new, and perhaps, taken as a whole, there was nothing particularly new in them.
In essence, Ilham Aliyev spoke openly about the strategic dominance Azerbaijan has established over Armenia. He did so without reservation, without restraint, and without the slightest concern that this might, for example, undermine the so-called “peace process”. The reason for this lack of inhibition is, of course, that Aliyev has secured international legitimization for his “control” over Armenia and obtained the “green light” for it from virtually all the major centers of power. Some gave that “green light” deliberately; others, at least for the time being, had no choice but to do so. But Aliyev’s uninhibited manner is evidence of precisely that.
Yet this is not at all about the question of what “poor Pashinyan” is supposed to do if everyone has given Aliyev that “green light.” The point is that they gave it because, first and foremost, Nikol Pashinyan himself willingly accepted it. He abandoned post-war political and diplomatic resistance. More than that, Nikol Pashinyan declared the very idea of such resistance to be “conflict-producing,” branded it “revanchism,” and effectively turned it into a means of blackmail against his own public.
And when the political leadership of Armenia abandons the idea of political and diplomatic resistance and struggle — and, moreover, turns that very idea into a means of blackmail against Armenia itself — there is no reason to be surprised that all the actors in international politics, at least for as long as they remain locked in a macro-political confrontation and struggle with one another, fundamentally accept this state of affairs and Azerbaijan’s dominance over it.
Read also
Pashinyan’s apologists explain this posture of surrender by saying: we lost, so what exactly do you want? But their tireless efforts to justify it are undermined by Pashinyan himself, who says that he consciously chose the path that brought Armenia to this point — to independence.
Apparently, all that will be left for the apologists to do is declare that Aliyev’s statements on Azerbaijani television are an ode to Armenia’s independence — simply the “country’s…” — excuse me, the “reverse side of the ode.”
Hakob BADALYAN
