AZERBAIJAN’S POSTURE – AN ORDINARY BLACKMAIL
Vardan Grigoryan
Hayots Ashkhar Daily
Published on June 04, 2008
Armenia
Without any option to refuse negotiations
Prior to the high-level meeting between the Armenian and Azeri leaders,
the senior representatives of both countries’ Foreign Ministries
continue their active communication with the mediator countries,
introducing their attitudes through various statements and proposals.
It’s obvious that during the whole process of the presidential
elections and post-electoral developments of Armenia, the official
Baku carried out large-scale work on the international arena towards
strengthening its positions on the Karabakh issue.
Even different representatives of the Armenian authorities have
mentioned in their statements many times that the Armenian diplomacy
has been experiencing a certain lack of initiatives and ideas during
the recent years.
Azerbaijan is step by step trying to extract the mediators’ consent
for negotiating the return of not only the liberated territories
but also Nagorno Karabakh; however, it confronts the international
community’s resistance, at least for the time being.
On June 3, Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Vagif Sadikhov
announced that the international community wanted to achieve the
solution of the Karabakh issue through bilateral negotiations rather
than principles. "We do really have principles, but we don’t want to
use them while assessing the current situation; we just suggest that
you forget about them and achieve an agreement on your own."
But because Baku is unready for mutual concessions through
negotiations, it has recently started to make threats that it may
resume the military operations and thus bring the international
community face to face with the "accomplished fact".
The recent concerns expressed by a number of European Foreign Ministers
with regard to resuming the military operations testify to Azerbaijan’s
obvious blackmail policy. After meeting his Armenian counterpart,
Russian Foreign Minister S. Lavrov recently rejected the possibility
of such blackmail, "There is no military solution to the Karabakh
conflict which began twenty years ago."
This was immediately followed by the response of Khazar Ibrahim,
Spokesman of the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan, "If Sergey Lavrov
makes such statements, then Russia has to demand that the Armenian
forces be immediately withdrawn from the occupied territories of
Azerbaijan."
Touching upon Azerbaijan’s expectations from the meeting of the
two countries’ Foreign Ministers, Kh. Ibrahim added, "We want to
know whether or not Armenia is ready for settling the conflict in a
peaceful manner. If we see that the Armenian party is not going to
do anything in that direction, the negotiations will become pointless."
Does this mean that during the upcoming negotiations Azerbaijan
is going to guide itself by the maximalistic principle which says
"either return everything or declare a war"? We believe not, because
the political scientists of both countries are already making sincere
confessions that the attitude adopted by the official Baku may be
characterized as "balancing on the boundary of breaching the rules
of the game".
So, while Azerbaijan is trying to resort to total blackmail in an
attempt of threatening the international community to resume the
Karabakh War, the Armenian party still continues to guide itself by
the necessity of implementing the basic principles introduced by the
mediators on November 29, 2007. Statements in this regard have been
made several times by Armenian Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandyan,
both during the meeting with his counterpart in Moscow and after
returning to Yerevan.
Thus, during he meeting of the two countries’ Presidents, the Armenian
party will be required to solve two problems closely connected with
each other:
First: to resist the obvious and at the same time false blackmail
of Azerbaijan and make it clear that by sitting around the table of
negotiations, Baku "does not do favor" to anyone, including Armenia; it
just accepts the absence of an alternative to the peaceful settlement
of the Karabakh conflict.
Second: If Azerbaijan is trying in this way to review the document
submitted by the mediators in Madrid on November 29, 2007, Armenia
has one option for opposing Azerbaijan’s primitive trick, i.e. to
initiate talks with Nagorno Karabakh.
In case of ignoring the proposals clearly defined by the international
community, Azerbaijan will have to choose between negotiating with
Karabakh and resuming the war – prospects for which the country is
unprepared for the time being.