We should add that this is not just some ordinary visit, but, as the saying goes, she means business and is coming loaded with ambitions.
The last time that her ambition sat in the driver’s seat was in Yerevan, where Madame Minister met with her colleague Ararat Mirzoyan, as well as with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. There, she made aware of herself with a mountain of statements that were anti-Azerbaijani in their spirit and essence, about which we will talk a little more below.
Oh, but I forgot to introduce our heroine. Her name is Hadja Lahbib and, as you can tell from her Arabic name, she is the epiphany of European political correctness, tolerance and inclusivity. Lahbib, of course, is expressing the good, old Turkophobic and Islamophobic policy of the Old World. Multiply this with the zeal of an Arab-Belgian, who is aspiring to become something almost of a new symbol of the country, waiting enviously in the shadow of the Manneken Pis.
Lady Lahbib is embarking on her visit with the ambition, as she herself expressed during a joint press conference with Ararat Mirzoyan, “to remind her Azerbaijani colleague that the rights and security of the Armenian population [of Garabagh] has to be respected”.
Something tells me that during the upcoming meeting with the Azerbaijani colleague, it will be the Belgian diplomat who will strenuously be using that part of the brain responsible for memories. I can predict, that Jeyhun Bayramov will, at the bare minimum, remind his Belgian counterpart of her country’s and Europe’s silence during the 30-year period of occupation of Azerbaijani lands by fascist Armenia.
Talking about fascism, it is very strange that in Belgium, where, as it seems, the liberal forces are in power, someone who manifested their hostility towards the Jews was allowed to the post of Foreign Minister (I deliberately am not using the term anti-Semitism, because that does technically not apply to Lahbib because of her Arabic roots). After all, it was Lahbib, who, being the host of a television competition at that time, defiantly refused to name the winner of the contest – a citizen of Israel.
Lahbib is not a career diplomat but a journalist. Her appointment as minister was more likely due to conjuncture and political correctness than professional requirements. Obviously, the desire of the Belgian elites to appoint a representative of the migrant minority to one of the key posts in the government was so strong, that they turned a blind eye not only to her lack of professional experience but also to the numerous faux-pas, which would have posed a barrier to climbing the career ladder in a “decent” European community.
Among such nuances in Lahbib’s career, one should recall her visit to occupied Crimea as a journalist in 2021.
She almost immediately, following her appointment as the head of the diplomatic corpora, got into a scandal. Invitations and visas were issued to 14 Iranian officials to participate in a festival, held in Belgium, all that while protesters were being brutally harrassed in Iran. The ruling party managed to exonerate Lahbib back then by appointing then-State Secretary Pascal Smet as the scapegoat and dismissing him from his post. However, this did not stop the Belgian MPs from making permanent claims, and it was finally decided that Lahbib would remain minister until the next parliamentary election in 2024.
Yet we, of course, must not forget that Lahbib’s stances are not her personal ones, but of the country she represents. The position of this country, in line with the common European policy, has never deviated from lacking objectivity in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.
Although Brussels (as the capital of Belgium in this context) has expressed its support for the solution of the former Garabagh conflict within the framework of international law and the relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council, it never tried to inform, or at least hint, to Yerevan of the inadmissibility of continuing its occupational policy. With the beginning of the Patriotic War, Brussels immediately broke its long silence, though, and expressed their “deep concern”. After the signing of the Trilateral Statement of November 10, 2020, the Belgian foreign ministry issued a ridiculous comment calling for the resumption of the activities of the OSCE Minsk Group, which has long been synonymous with hypocrisy and double standards. Later, in December 2020, the Belgian Federal Parliament adopted a malicious piece of paper, which reflected the entire Armenian narrative: “initiation of the war in Baku”, “recruitment of mercenaries by Azerbaijan”, “military support of Türkiye and jihadists”, “genocide”, “the right of the people to self-determination”, etc. The Belgian Senate passed a similar resolution. We will not list all documents of anti-Azerbaijani content adopted by Belgian institutions, there are more than enough. I would just like to point out that the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also taken an openly provocative pro-Armenian position in its interpretation of the situation on the Lachin Road related to the action of the Azerbaijani environmental activists, the subsequent installation of the “Lachin” border control post as well as the alleged humanitarian disaster caused by these measures.
Here are just a few excerpts from the statements of the current foreign minister, the heroine of today’s material, Hadja Lahbib: ” […] the only road connecting Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh is under blockade”, “the issue related to Armenian prisoners is on the agenda of all our meetings”, and “the blockade must be urgently lifted for humanitarian reasons”.
Here is another pearl of wisdom that the newly appointed diplomat believed would have a special effect on the Azerbaijani leadership: “We welcome Prime Minister Pashinyan’s bold move to publicly recognize the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. We urge the leadership of Azerbaijan to do the same at the highest level”.
An adult, yet so naive. I have no doubt that Jeyhun Bayramov will give her a master class in explaining how the recognition of territorial integrity should occur not in words, but in deeds. It seems to me, in general, that the more experienced Western diplomats refrained from sounding this foolish phrase, deliberately leaving it to the Belgian neophyte, so that Baku’s mockery would target only her.
Lahbib’s statements look like she is urging Baku to hurry up with signing a peace agreement on the terms of a pro-Armenian club. What makes this ambition look even more ridiculous is the fact, that it directly follows the catastrophic fiasco of the Armenian cause at the UN Security Council. All this creates a strong feeling that behind the Belgian diplomat’s passion stands nothing but the desire to please the Armenian ego.
Baku will continue to act in accordance with its national interests. At the same time, traditionally it will welcome any international platforms to voice and promote its position. However, recent statements by European and US politicians and journalists suggest that the negotiating tables of Washington and Brussels will have to remain empty for some time while waiting for a more constructive approach from their hosts.
P.S.: Lahbib met with Foreign Minister Mirzoyan and Prime Minister Pashinyan in Yerevan. She met Minister Bayramov in Baku, but there are no plans for a meeting between President Aliyev and the Belgian minister.
Murad Abiyev
Caliber.Az
