All of these venues are of course being tested, and the fact that a venue like Washington has dropped out of the negotiation process does not really mean that all the other venues are gaining any advantage. And this is very important to understand.
Ilgar Mammadov, leader of the REAL political party, said this in a conversation with Minval.az, addressing the loss of another negotiating platform, Washington. It would seem that it was in the US that the parties were close to a breakthrough at the very beginning, but then something went wrong.
In his opinion, “the loss of negotiating platforms encourages both sides to establish a direct dialog, without mediators, for example, figuratively speaking, to build a village on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border and negotiate one-on-one, that is, it can lead to strengthening the possibility of personal contact between Baku and Yerevan.”
According to him, there is an Armenian lobby in the US that has enormous influence, but “in fact, we saw during the war of 2020 and during the September counterterrorism operation that the Azerbaijani state and the public are capable of neutralizing the influence of the Armenian lobby on American politics—to a certain extent.”
“Of course, we should not overestimate its importance and power, but still. For example, the US Senate has passed a resolution to stop military aid to Azerbaijan in the future, although, of course, this decision has to go through many stages. In fact, the situation is dynamic and we will see where it takes us. If everything serves to strengthen Armenia’s position in the negotiations, only then can the Senate’s decision be described as pro-Armenian,” Mammadov believes.
Speaking about the prospect of a peace treaty between Baku and Yerevan being signed by the end of the year, the politician noted that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in recent months has taken “a consistent line of presenting himself and his country as a so-called ‘island of democracy’ surrounded by repressive regimes, coupled with statements and actions aimed against his strategic ally Russia, to add credibility to this new position, and this position resonates in certain circles in Western countries, despite the fact that it has so far not changed the situation.”
“But in the long run, it can. And the peculiarity of today’s situation is precisely this: the new manipulations of the Pashinyan administration, when instead of seeking to make peace, he has started playing geopolitics in order to gain some kind of advantage in the negotiations, and—even worse!—may start a new war in order to blame Azerbaijan. There are some ingrained clichés in Western academic and political circles that, for example, “democracies do not fight democracies” and if a war suddenly happens between a democratic and an “authoritarian” country, it is certainly not the democracy that is to blame, but the other country. Pashinyan has been frantically reinforcing this narrative in recent months. What plan is Pashinyan hatching? Most likely, either to gain an advantage in the negotiations, which are being conducted with a significant involvement of Western mediators, or to start a war screaming “I am being attacked!” and get the full military support of Western countries. This is fraught with catastrophic developments in the region, it can lead to a large-scale war, and that is exactly what Pashinyan is doing now, trying to pit everyone against each other and get a new war. Of course, Azerbaijan’s policy should take into account this drive of Pashinyan’s and not allow him to build up this narrative,” Mammadov said.
According to Mammadov, Russia and Iran will have a negative reaction to the presence of the West in the region. He also believes that the line that Pashinyan is currently pursuing (intensifying confrontation, giving it a general ideological dimension) may lead to a situation when he himself starts a war and blames everything on Azerbaijan.
“In this situation, the West will intervene and support Pashinyan, and this will be both an academic position and a position broadcast by the political systems of Western countries. That is why both Iran and Russia are now watching this line rather cautiously because it may lead to a war in which they will have to face not Armenia, not Azerbaijan, but the Western military presence in this new conflict. There are, of course, some encouraging moments: Azerbaijan has openly stated and publicly confirmed at various platforms and meetings that there are no plans to go to war over Zangezur. We have not been advocating territorial integrity and inviolability of borders for more than 30 years only to start a war one day and claim other people’s territories. This is the narrative that Pashinyan is building, and it is very difficult to say what he has in mind. And most likely, he is hatching a plan for a new war,” Mammadov summed up.
Yana Madatova
Translated from Minval.az
