Special methods require to exploit disagreement between Vardanyan and Yerevan  Farid Shafiyev comments on Baku's political strategy

Political prospects of 2023 for Azerbaijan generally look optimistic, but there are also unresolved issues. The tracks of the dialogue with the neighboring Armenia look vague and uncertain - December "tricks" of Yerevan, which delayed the signing of the peace treaty, cannot but cause concern. Armenia's hysteria around the contrived "humanitarian catastrophe" of Karabakh clearly does not contribute to the continuation of a peaceful dialogue, which the revanchist forces in Armenia and political sponsors of Armenians abroad are seeking.

What strategy should Baku pursue in its future relations with Yerevan? How to work in the current situation in the international arena?

Azerbaijani political analyst Farid Shafiyev, chairman of the Board of the Centre for Analysis of International Relations (AIR), says it is difficult to make general forecasts about 2023, given that the situation may change - there are many dynamics and the influence of geopolitical factors. Speaking to Caliber.Az, Shafiyev suggested that in this sense it is worth doing a little review of the year 2022, which, incidentally, began quite positively, when Azerbaijan put forward its five points in the format of a peace treaty, and Armenia initially perceived them positively. But then, the political scientist notes, both the internal opposition and revanchists frightened Pashinyan, and in autumn Russia has already openly begun to intervene in the process and tell Armenians not to recognize the jurisdiction of Azerbaijan over Karabakh. At least it looked that way.

And here, in his view, special mechanisms are needed.

"The issue of the peace treaty remains problematic, and its most important point, it seems to me, is not simply Armenia's recognition of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity, but that it should finally recognise Baku's sovereignty over Karabakh. And it seems to me that it is not enough that the Armenians are now making ambiguous statements and just referring to the Almaty Declaration. Azerbaijan's sovereignty over Karabakh should be written in a separate paragraph, because Armenians are already playing with this declaration, turning inside out its meaning," Shafiyev stressed.

According to the expert, it is difficult to make a definite forecast for 2023: Armenia, in fact, refused both the Moscow platform and almost destroyed the trilateral format with EU President Charles Michel, demanding to turn it into a quadrilateral one.

"It seems to me that there is a possibility of movement through US mediation efforts: the media, in particular, says that Philippe Reeker has resigned as Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the US will not deal with negotiations between the sides. But I don't think so.

In my opinion, we need to use some moments and be more flexible. The first point here is that we see big disagreements between Pashinyan's and Vardanyan's teams. It is clear to everyone that Vardanyan went to Karabakh for a reason - he needed first of all to destroy the dialogue between Karabakh Armenians and the authorities in Baku," Shafiyev said.

Also, as he notes, it appears that a platform is being prepared in Karabakh to strengthen the influence of the 'state minister' in Armenia as well. And there is a domestic political game going on here: Sargsyan and Kocharyan are also from Karabakh and were once presidents of Armenia. And even Ter-Petrosyan, who is not from Karabakh, came to power on the wave of the separatist movement. So the only person, the expert stresses, who is not from this mess is Pashinyan, who sees a threat from Vardanyan and those who nominated him.

"Hence, we can use this situation to our advantage by establishing a dialogue with Karabakh Armenians who are discontent with Vardanyan since there are some of them. There are also some Armenians who are very dissatisfied with Vardanyan in Armenia. We need to work more actively with various countries, including the United States, because at the moment they are very interested in having a peace treaty signed at last. The issue of separatist Armenian Karabakh and its status is already closed for many," Shafiyev stressed.

There is, he says, also a third point, and this was made particularly clear in a recent speech by the Azerbaijani president. The question is that if Armenia talks about the rights of the Karabakh Armenians and at the same time evades a peace treaty, why should we be silent about the rights of Azerbaijanis in Armenia, their rights to return to that country?

"By the way, my article on this topic was published in the American The National Interest back in 2020, right after the end of the 44-day war. And this is a very important point that needs to be justly addressed: we should put the issue of restitution of the rights of Azerbaijanis living in Armenia on the agenda. Such a diverse level of political pressure on our neighbour, it seems to me, is simply necessary," the expert believes.