Azerbaijani President’s victory, war near Egyptian borders, Russian leader’s sensitive pressure
Political analyst’s weekly review

ANALYTICS  11 February 2024 - 11:54

Caliber.Az has prepared another “Events” show with Azerbaijani political analyst Murad Abiyev about the main news of the week related to Azerbaijan and other countries.

AZERBAIJAN - ARMENIA

The main news of the outgoing week in Azerbaijan was the snap presidential elections. Azerbaijani incumbent President Ilham Aliyev gained an impressive victory, gaining 92.12 per cent of the votes.

By voting for President Aliyev, the Azerbaijani people voted for victory, for their right to be strong and independent. The victory of the incumbent president is the determination of the Azerbaijani people to defend and strengthen their sovereignty amid ongoing external challenges.

These challenges are still observed because the leaders of the leading Western countries have not congratulated Ilham Aliyev on his victory yet.

The congratulations of President of the European Council Charles Michel are worth appreciating.

Mr. Michel is indeed one of the rare Western leaders who strove not for false, but for true justice, but however, he was unable to resist France’s hegemony in the EU.

Meanwhile, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan continued to convince his society of the need to change the constitution at a governmental session in the National Assembly. The prime minister added that the current external situation in Armenia differs from that one when the current constitution was adopted.

For this reason, Pashinyan explained that the document must be adapted in accordance with the modern trends.

“What does the decision to unite Nagorno-Karabakh and the Republic of Armenia mean? Will our policy be based on this decision in the future? If so, what kind of peace are we talking about? This means that peace is impossible,” Pashinyan said.

“Changes in the Armenian Constitution are not connected with Azerbaijan’s conditions on the peace treaty,” Pashinyan added.

He emphasised that the amendments were made only because an internal agenda. In principle, the idea is correct as the preamble of any constitution is connected with ideology. As for Armenia, ideology, having an external focus, is still an internal issue.

Pashinyan’s argument is ambiguous.

“There is a clause in a possible version of the peace treaty stipulating that the sides must fulfill their obligations, referring to domestic legislation. This is primarily an internal agenda,” the Armenian prime minister said.

We have not read the draft treaty, but we can assume that the item to which Pashinyan refers, if it exists, only confirms the principle accepted by many countries, according to which, in case of contradictions between international treaties and domestic legislation, priority is given to international obligations. However, there are two nuances here.

First, this principle does not usually apply to the constitution. Indeed, Article 6 of the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia states that international treaties that contradict the constitution cannot be ratified.

Secondly, there is a partial answer in the same article of the Armenian constitution, the parliament has the right not to ratify the treaty, citing not only inconsistency with the constitution, but also with other legislative acts.

In this case, the clause of the draft treaty voiced by Pashinyan has no significance as the treaty itself under these circumstances will not enter into force.

Moreover, Pashinyan said that the reservations made by the Armenian parliament when ratifying the Almaty Declaration of 1991 have no legal force as contrary to international legal norms, they were not transferred to the depositary.

The last statement is confusing. It is unclear whom Pashinyan wants to mislead– Armenian society or Azerbaijan. In general, we feel that he once again intends to evade signing a peace treaty and to ignore Baku’s demands for changes in legislation.

MIDDLE EAST

Intensive fighting continues between the Israeli army and Hamas in southern Gaza Strip. According to the Israeli military, Khan Younis city has been almost completely cleared of Hamas militants - only one of the four Hamas battalions remains there.

In total, the Israeli military eliminated 17 Hamas battalions in the Gaza Strip out of 24 that existed in the enclave, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

The Israeli prime minister also said that the military is systematically destroying tunnels in all parts of the Gaza Strip, which requires more time.

The Arab countries and Israel's allies are greatly concerned about Tel Aviv's intention to continue its offensive in the southern Gaza Strip to the city of Rafah, which, as we remember, is on the border with Egypt. There are about a million Palestinians there now, most of them are refugees from other cities of Gaza.

Cairo began to build a second wall on the path of potential refugees and stated that an Israeli attack on Rafah would undermine Egypt’s peace treaty with the Jewish state.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has already made his fifth voyage to the Middle East to achieve some ceasefire.

Netanyahu, during a meeting with Blinken, said that Hamas ceasefire plan is insane and added that the war would continue until Hamas was destroyed.

Hamas proposed a truce plan for almost six months, which envisaged great opportunities for maneuver.

Despite this, the sides continue holding negotiations through mediators in Cairo. These negotiations are expected to last at least ten days. The mediators are the US, Egypt and Qatar. Türkiye and Saudi Arabia actively participate in the negotiation process.

UKRAINE - RUSSIA

The situation on the Ukrainian front is still difficult. Donetsk suburb of Avdiivka is under threat of being taken by the Russian army. Meanwhile, Ukraine and Russia exchanged prisoners of war according to the formula 100 to 100. The United Arab Emirates acted as a mediator.

Meanwhile, the main news on the Ukrainian agenda was the dismissal of Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Valerii Zaluzhnyi by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Former commander of the ground forces, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi has become the new commander in chief.

Syrskyi was involved in Kyiv and Kharkiv operations. Advisor to the head of the Ukrainian presidential office Mykhailo Podolyak said that the decision was made to reconsider the combat tactics, which “did not fully give the desired result last year” and to prevent stagnation along the front line “negatively affecting public sentiment”.

Two more reasons named by Podolyak are the search for new functional and high-tech solutions to “retain and develop initiative,” as well as the reforming of the management principles in the army.

Ukraine needs not only new command for successful military operations, but also military assistance from the West, which is not ready to help yet. Moreover, not only Kyiv, but also Berlin is concerned about the lack of the US assistance.

If the US reduces support for Ukraine, then Germany will rank first in terms of assistance to Kyiv. However, Berlin doesn’t want such an honour at all. Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared that such a situation was unacceptable and called on the EU and the US to jointly increase support for Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Washington has not made a decision on assistance yet. However, the Senate adopted a procedural decision for further consideration of the bill on additional assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

The final decision on a package worth $95.34 billion in military aid, of which about $60 billion is envisaged for Ukraine, will be made in the next few days by both the Senate and the House of Representatives. There is such a question. How will the Republicans, who make up the majority in the House of Representatives, vote this time?

RUSSIA

While speaking about the war in Ukraine, the keynote interview of Russian President Vladimir Putin with US popular journalist Tucker Carlson is worthy mentioning.

President Putin spoke a lot, voiced a historical background, in which he once again questioned the right of Ukrainians to statehood, by emphasising that Moscow had no claims to Ukraine until it began to participate in NATO’s aggressive plans for expansion to the East.

Moreover, President Putin said that the war in Ukraine “civil” and in general very skillfully used the mood of Ukrainian society associated with general fatigue, the delay of Western assistance and anxiety about total mobilisation.

He ended the interview with a story about a besieged Ukrainian detachment which refused to surrender and died saying that “Russians do not surrender”. The Russian leader’s voice trembled. Carlson seemed to be very impressed.

Journalists of the liberal wing immediately began to accuse Carlson of being excessively complimentary to President Putin and Russia, blaming him for not asking a question about Bucha and the victims among the Ukrainian civilians. This is a very naive and helpless remark as if President Putin could not answer these questions in a way that would be beneficial to himself.

However, critics are missing an important point. The Russian president has made it clear that he is ready for negotiations. He said that President Zelenskyy must cancel his decree prohibiting negotiations with Russia.

Moreover, I don’t presume to say, but the Russian president’s reference to the Istanbul agreements may demonstrate Moscow’s readiness to return to the March 2022 agenda. According to some Ukrainian analysts, that agenda was quite constructive.

The general theme of President Putin’s speech was that the West badly assessed the global trends in the strengthening of other forces and, instead of adapting and agreeing, preferred to resolve issues by force. He said that the war in Ukraine will end when the West admits its mistake and stops providing Kyiv with weapons.

President Putin emphasised several times that the talks between Moscow and Washington still continue through special channels.

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