The Karabakh heart, forcibly ripped out of the body of our people, has been returned to its place, reimplanted into the body, and now the Motherland breathes freely. However, the theft that started in the late 1980s and ended with the elimination of its consequences last year, unfortunately, echoed in other parts of Azerbaijan as well.
In the general shock, some peripheral parts of the body were lost, albeit temporarily and not on such a large scale; if we were to continue the allegory, we would call them “fingers and toes”. These were several exclaves and non-exclave villages located far away from the main Karabakh theater of military operations. In order to state the full restoration of the territorial integrity of the former Azerbaijan SSR (we use this category deliberately, because apart from the territorial integrity of the former Soviet Azerbaijan, there is also the territorial integrity of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, and the territories of the two republics are far from being identical), it now remains to achieve the liberation of these occupied exclaves and border villages one way or another.
This issue, along with the general delimitation of the state border, the opening of regional communications in letter and spirit of Paragraph 9 of the Trilateral Statement, the assessment of the legislative framework of the Republic of Armenia with a view to determining whether it contains elements of territorial claims against Azerbaijan, addressing humanitarian issues (such as the handover of maps of minefields and graves, as well as information on missing persons), the unconditional recognition by Armenia and its official apology to Azerbaijan for the crimes committed by its military in Khojaly, Garadagli, Malibeyli, Gushchular, Agdaban, Meshali, Baganis Ayrim and others, must remain on the list of prerequisite conditions for signing a peace treaty until they are fulfilled.
Last week, the seventh meeting of the delimitation commissions at the level of deputy prime ministers of the two countries took place on the conditional border between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The parties were represented by Shahin Mustafayev and Mher Grigoryan. The parties exchanged views on delimitation issues and started harmonizing the draft Regulations “On Joint Activities of the State Commission on State Border Delimitation between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Armenia and the Commission on State Border Delimitation and Border Security between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan”. The draft instructions on the delimitation procedures were also discussed. The parties agreed to finalize the draft regulations on the joint activities of the delimitation commissions in the shortest time possible and set the date and venue of the next meeting.
This is the protocol part of the press release following the meeting. However, what followed immediately after the release of the official statement was much more interesting. The office of Deputy Prime Minister of Azerbaijan Shahin Mustafayev, who, as we have mentioned, heads the state commission on delimitation with Armenia, stated that as part of the delimitation process it would be imperative to resolve the issue of liberation of four Azerbaijani exclave villages of Yukhari Askipara, Karki, Sofulu and Barkhudarli. But the non-exclave occupied villages of Baganis Ayrim, Ashagi Askipara, Kheyrimli and Gizilgajili are to be liberated immediately!
On the one hand, this is a natural demand. If you occupied these villages, you must free them while you are at it, especially since there is no difference between the once occupied villages in Karabakh and those in Gazakh in the eyes of any Azerbaijani. On the other hand, this statement was made with a certain degree of determination, and it sounds like a warning. Azerbaijani officials have never until now used such a firm tone when speaking about the non-exclave territories of Gazakh before.
We do not know whether it was felt in neighboring Armenia. If not, too bad. To the Azerbaijani ears, the warning was quite clear. The dulling of the senses of Armenian politicians may prove costly for their country. This is something they should understand. The occupation of these villages is temporary, it will come to an end, there is no doubt about it. Why, in that case, should they push the matter to yet another special operation and new graves in Yerablur?!
Zohrab Dadashov
Translated from Minval.az
