A mountain of controversy in the South Caucasus Munich again

On February 18, within the framework of the Munich Security Conference, a plenary session titled "Moving Mountains? Building Security in the South Caucasus" was held with the participation of the leaders of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia. OSCE Secretary General Helga Schmid also joined the discussion. The meeting was moderated by Christoph Heusgen, a German diplomat and current Chairman of the Munich Security Conference.

The discussion took place immediately after a closed meeting between the two leaders with the participation of the US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken.

Following the meeting, Aliyev gave an interview to the Azerbaijani media, in which he said that three days ago Baku received a response from the Armenian side to its proposals, in which, at first glance, there is progress in Armenia's position, but it is not enough. An important development was the proposal by the Azerbaijani side to create checkpoints on both sides of the Azerbaijani-Armenian conditional border. Aliyev expressed satisfaction with the position of Europe and the US, who found the Azerbaijani proposals expedient. This means that Baku has succeeded step by step in meeting its conditions in the process of preparing a peace treaty with Armenia.

As for the plenary session itself, the participants were asked questions concerning the Karabakh peace talks, the situation on the Lachin road, and the impact of the war in Ukraine on the region. By the way, it is interesting to compare the current discussion with the famous one three years ago. Today Aliyev, as then, radiated confidence in his position. The landslide victory in the Second Karabakh War undoubtedly only strengthened this feeling. However, despite this, Ilham Aliyev did not allow himself to make a mockery of the defeated opponent. At the same time, after the Armenian leader had again raised the hoary agenda of the "humanitarian crisis" in Karabakh, President Aliyev's statements became harsher, which without insulting his rival, had the light touch of punishment for his arrogance. For example, the head of state did not fail to throw cold water on the debating fervor of the Armenian prime minister, calling the agreement of November 10, 2020, a de facto surrender of Armenia. With this remark, Aliyev not only showed his natural temper at Pashinyan's behaviour during the discussion but also expressed the Azerbaijani side's rejection of the Armenian prime minister's manner of hushing up the negotiation process in endless demagogic in a wider context.

For his part, Pashinyan did not fail to take offense at these words, calling the statement insulting. In general, Pashinyan was not as energetic this time as he was three years ago. Waiting for the start of the conversation, he sullenly held the microphone, apparently afraid of repeating the sad incident when he got electrocuted during a meeting with voters in Zangazur. This time, he was no longer flaunting diplomatic "lifehacks" like "small revolutions" in the negotiation process, much less with references to history - the "Caucasian bureau" or Tigran the Great. After the defeat in the autumn of 2020, his arsenal of arguments has naturally diminished, which has only intensified the hysterical nature of his statements. The Armenian leader's manic passion for primitive rhetorical equilibrium and shameless juggling with facts was already quite disgusting at this meeting. For example, even for Azerbaijanis, who are used to all sorts of insinuations, Pashinyan's "retorting" Aliyev's remarks about the destroyed mosques in Karabakh was completely unexpected. The Armenian leader found nothing better than to attribute these destructions to the Soviet period when thousands of mosques and churches were destroyed both in Azerbaijan and Armenia. "The Armenians of Karabakh are not responsible for these destructions," he said trying to look clever. As we can see, this is not even a lie anymore, but a psychiatric case.

Such a trick is only allowed on political TV shows, not on serious political venues where people not only know the issues but also have a keen sense of the falsity of the conversation. Pashinyan's escapade was a blatant sign of disrespect for all the participants in the discussion, as well as those in the audience. It is worth noting that it will only further damage the international image of both the Armenian leader and Armenia as a state. There is clearly a sacrifice of long-term interests for the sake of speculative, short-term gain. Perhaps this approach can be projected onto the entire policy of Pashinyan, who, with no real trump cards in hand, is simply drowning the negotiation process in a rhetorical quagmire, bringing his country ever closer to a state of wild 99chaos.

Overall, the tension between the two leaders suggests that the private meeting mediated by Blinken that preceded the discussion was far from comfortable for Pashinyan, who may have once again shied away from concrete guarantees for the continuation of the settlement process.

In any case, everything will become clear in the coming days. However, we can state that the head of state skillfully used the Munich platform to promote Azerbaijan's interests and at the same time showed who was slowing down the peace process, which is so vital for our region.