Imagine for a moment that you are a Foreign Ministry official sitting in some X capital, dealing with the South Caucasus, specifically Armenia-Azerbaijan topics, studying and seeing that Azerbaijan has started a new campaign of territorial claims against Armenia at the state level. You say, see what the RA authorities evaluate this, let me know so that I can report to the ministers and deputy ministers. You open yesterday’s press conference of the RA leader and hear how he literally justifies the aggressive plans being promoted by Azerbaijan, accusing the RA opposition of it. You write and report that Armenia actually considers the promotion of this program “logical” in the presence of such opposition. Then, when an Azerbaijani official with that agenda comes to the Foreign Ministry of X country, they will say that there is no actual objection from Armenia, let’s come and talk.
This is how Pashinyan makes a very direct and obvious advocacy in favor of Azerbaijan, such dangerous parallels help Azerbaijan advance the invasion plan invented from zero in the capitals of different countries.
No diplomat from X country will stand up for our interests more than us, they will not go and investigate and say: you know, the Prime Minister of RA is making some kind of illogical claim. After all, that Artsakh is an age-old name, fixed in the writings and maps of various historians, not to mention that the Nagorno Karabakh conflict is an internationally recognized conflict. No one will say, but you know, the right of return of Artsakh Armenians has been established by international courts, it is not enough, the RA leadership is fighting against it today. They will not say that you know that there is no real map on the planet where the name “West Azerbaijan” applies to the territory of Armenia, and international courts have rejected the applications of the Azerbaijani side regarding the right in this matter. No one will do what we have to do for us, instead they will look at the speeches of Aliyev’s henchmen of the RA authorities and very calmly accept the Azerbaijani officials who have held any event on “rights” topics, because Pashinyan is “normalizing” all that.
That is why I say that the consolidation of the public sphere is very important in this matter, because this is a matter of national security. If the public sphere is united in calling this an invasive concept that threatens regional stability, then maybe a diplomat from country X will include that in the report as well. After all, the majority of voters in this country did not accept Aliyev’s henchman Pashinyan as the prime minister. Therefore, diplomat X can take this into account in his report. Today, the main task in restraining Azerbaijan is in the hands of the public sphere.
Azerbaijanologist Tatev Hayrapetyan
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