Baku itself or with Turkish, Russian help to break through Zangazur corridor Petrov and Semivolos on Caliber.Az

Beyind any shadow of a doubt, many people living in the yards of the old buildings, surrounded by a lot of neighbors, came across such an extremely active, noisy, manipulative neighbor, whom she always complained about the lack of money, illness and other misfortunes.

So, now Armenia resembles such a sneaky, cunning and vociferous lady, trying to earn a place in the sun at the expense of others. Forgetting about all its obligations - unblocking the Zangazur corridor, demarcating the border, withdrawing Armenian armed forces from Karabakh, and most importantly, signing a peace treaty, Yerevan is trying, yelling loudly, to switch international attention to fictitious problems of a different order. And utter nonsense is being used - starting from the "famine" and "genocide of the Armenian population" in Karabakh to the bitter fate of the Armenian war criminals, who were detained by Azerbaijan.

What caused this new round of buffoon games in Yerevan? Where is it heading and what is it counting on? With these questions, Caliber.Az turned to international experts.

According to Andrey Petrov, deputy general director of the Vestnik Kavkaza news agency, Russian pundit, the international community today is witnessing the traditional Armenian foreign policy: talk about your attitude towards peace, but do nothing and look for maximum reasons, excuses for your inaction.

As the pundit noted, this game is played out according to two scenarios: if nothing happens, then Armenia actively publishes statements about the mood for peace, because in this case, nothing is required of it.

“When Azerbaijan takes active steps on the ground, Armenia switches to criticising Baku, because its goal, in the end, and time will say this directly, is to freeze the progress that has already taken place, to leave unchanged the indulgences that it managed to get. In fact, nothing new has appeared in Armenian politics compared to what was under Kocharyan and Sargsyan, as well as Pashinyan before the Second Karabakh War. In Yerevan, just as before, they want to maintain a certain borderline state of “no war, no peace”, so that the situation of “incomplete” defeat of Armenia remains as long as possible, and preferably forever,” A. Petrov believes.

Therefore, he believes, now, when Azerbaijan began to identify and detain Armenian war criminals, when Azerbaijan is building a logically substantiated road from Barda to Aghdam and further to Khankandi, Armenia is responding to this with demands to stop doing something, to change something, because it is afraid of losing benefits in the intermediate status quo that currently exists.

"What will happen next? Based on the analysis of almost three years after the 44-day war, we can say almost clearly: Armenia will continue to pour empty statements and do nothing. With the exception of provocations, although for them, I note, she has fewer and fewer opportunities. And Azerbaijan will consistently implement its peaceful program to revive Karabakh and Eastern Zangazur and ensure their security. That is, everything that we will see next will be exclusively in the mode when Azerbaijan is implementing its program, and Armenia cannot do anything about it, but to rage verbally, in social networks and official statements,” the Russian pundit says.

In his opinion, sooner or later, all this will end up in the fact that Azerbaijan will complete the construction of its part of the Zangazur corridor, and Armenia, for its part, will not lay a single rail.

“But I would like to hope that Azerbaijan, either on its own or with the assistance of Türkiye and Russia, interested in the Zangazur corridor, will somehow break through the Armenian part of Zangazur and the road will be completed.

If we talk about the withdrawal of the armed formations of the Armenian separatists from Karabakh, then, apparently, it will look like their disarmament, but at the same time, people guilty of war crimes will be detained and arrested. Everyone else will be given, as Ilham Aliyev said, a choice: either remain as citizens of Azerbaijan, or leave for Armenia. But here I repeat again that not everyone will be able to leave Karabakh just like that - those who are involved in war crimes will no longer be able to leave Azerbaijan. As it happened, for example, with Vagif Khachaturyan,” A. Petrov said.

On the whole, a Ukrainian pundit, director of the Kyiv Center for Middle East Studies, Igor Semivolos, agrees with him. Armenia’s strategy, he is sure, has not changed much since 2020. Pashinyan’s key task is to drag out the negotiations as much as possible, balancing on the brink of war and peace, and at the same time, appeal to such sensitive topics for the West as, for example, the issues of “hunger”, “blockade”, “genocide”, etc.

“Armenians still have an important task – to preserve the illegal formation of separatists in one form or another, and that non-management of this formation from Baku, but by external forces. Actually, this is the level of Pashinyan's decisions that allows him to find compromises within the Armenian society.

What does Yerevan count on? That time will allow them to find new options. For example, it will help to find new allies. To draw attention to this problem in Europe, the United States. Especially ahead of the next elections in the US, where at some point, the Armenian diaspora can play and influence the decisions of American politicians. In addition, now, when Russia’s position in the South Caucasus has seriously weakened and when Russia cannot guarantee Armenia maintaining the status quo after 2025, Yerevan’s goals include one way or another one strategy - to prevent the final fixation of Karabakh within Azerbaijan, its complete transition under the control of Baku in every sense of the word.

As for talks about a new war, it seems to me that Armenia in any case will not have enough resources for such a war. At the same time, Armenia seems to be counting on the fact that Azerbaijan now, in the presence of Russian troops in Karabakh, will not start active hostilities there. Russia, for its part, proceeds from the fact that its troops will remain there after 2025.

This means that it is necessary to create a situation in which neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan will be able to regulate their relations without the participation of Moscow. And in this regard, only diplomatic efforts remain for Baku, which will force Russia to fulfill its part of the obligations - to withdraw its troops from Karabakh. And a lot here, it seems to me, depends on what is happening on the Ukrainian front: as Russia weakens, it will no longer have enough resources to maintain points of tension in different parts of the world.

Regarding the possibilities and prospects for concluding a peace agreement, it seems to me that Armenia should mature to this state. The fact that fakes, panic moods are spreading in Armenia and it deliberately raises the degree of confrontation is the same strategy for drawing attention to itself and its problems, as well as intimidating the population with formidable Azerbaijan. The organizers of these shows, who are based in Yerevan and other centers, simply have no other means of manipulation,” summed up I. Semivolos.