Armenian FM ratchets up deceitful rhetoric in the vain hope to revive OSCE MG

It has long been known that Armenian politicians are keeping up with the best traditions by laying the blame at someone else's door. This was confirmed during the meeting of the Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan with the OSCE Secretary General Helga Schmid, where the Armenian official voiced a barrage of unfounded accusations against Azerbaijan, most importantly, of course, about the "blockade" of the Lachin road.

Here are some of them. Needless to recall that the Armenian side, due to the ongoing action of Azerbaijani eco-activists on the Lachin road for more than a month, is trying to draw international attention to the so-called "blockade of 120 thousand Armenians in Karabakh," allegedly arranged by Azerbaijan. It is not surprising, therefore, that this was also a red line in Mirzoyan's fiery speech at a special meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council.

As Mirzoyan still claims, out of "120,000 people, 30,000 of whom are children, more than 1,000, including 270 children, cannot return home to Karabakh and are temporarily sheltered in Armenia". However, why was this not mentioned earlier? And when exactly did the statistics on the Armenian population of Karabakh skyrocket during the rally of Azerbaijani activists? The question is, of course, rhetorical and remains outside the scope of this topic.

Meanwhile, Mirzoyan stated that Azerbaijan violated point 6 of the Trilateral statement, which clearly states that "the Lachin corridor remains under the control of the peacekeeping contingent of the Russian Federation. The Republic of Azerbaijan guarantees the safety of movement of citizens, vehicles, and cargoes in both directions along the Lachin corridor."

There is a clear discrepancy in yet another complaint against Azerbaijan. Firstly, the Lachin road has been and is controlled by Russian peacekeepers, and representatives of Azerbaijani civil society only want to stop the illegal transportation of looted natural resources of the region, without impeding in any way the movement of other vehicles, in particular those of civil ones. But the Armenian side is trying to present the exact opposite to the rest of the world.

Incidentally, if the RPC posts on Lachin road were not installed, Azerbaijani ecologists and other experts could freely go to the deposits in the "gray zone" to monitor the mines there. Armenians are well aware of it, and therefore, the accusations of the Minister of Armenia are pure slander. And they have only one goal - to mislead the international community. But there are neither facts nor evidence, so they have to lie and spawn fabrications, just like other Armenian public figures. In fact, they all know that the reason for the protests was the resumption of illegal mining in the zone of temporary deployment of Russian peacekeepers in the Karabakh economic region of Azerbaijan. Moreover, the same Mirzoyan is aware that trucks with natural resources illegally mined at the Gizilbulag gold mine and the Demirli copper-molybdenum deposit were moving along this very road.

After Armenia's defeat in the Second Karabakh War, its illegal use of Azerbaijan's natural resources was halted, including in the area where Russian peacekeepers were temporarily stationed. But the situation changed last autumn after Russian billionaire Ruben Vardanian resumed illegal economic activity in Karabakh. So Azerbaijan has a legal right to demand an end to the ecocide.

Moreover, the facts confirming that arms and mines have been brought into Karabakh via the Lachin road for the entire two years since the war and that the Armenians have laid them in the territory adjacent to the 'grey zone' are plentiful. Therefore, the activists' demand for negotiations with the command of Russian peacekeepers to organise strict control over the movement of people and goods along the Lachin road is absolutely logical and a direct refutation of the Armenian side's statements that this road is not under the control of Russian peacekeepers. And it should be noted that the Azerbaijani accusations of the blockade of the Lachin road have already failed after Baku made a very clever diplomatic move by inviting foreign journalists and reporters to the region so that they could see for themselves on the spot that there is no blockade of the Karabakh Armenians and that people are protesting peacefully, without creating any obstacles for humanitarian goods traveling along this road.

Another fact indicates that the Armenian minister's deceitful rhetoric is designed, among other things, to revive the long-defunct international structure called the OSCE Minsk Group.

"The OSCE is currently experiencing bad times, and the situation in the South Caucasus is not the only crisis facing the organisation. At the same time, we believe that all conflicts in the OSCE area of responsibility should be the focus of the organisation and its structures. The OSCE, with the co-chairs of the Minsk Group, has been involved in the political settlement of the Karabakh conflict from the outset. Despite all the challenges, the MG still has a responsibility, as a political solution to the conflict has not yet been reached. We believe the OSCE can play an important role not only in achieving but also in maintaining peace through the engagement of its structures," Mirzoyan said.

Expectations of Armenians from a clearly discredited organisation are not the best indicator and suggest that Armenia still lacks the willingness and desire to move in a constructive direction to build relations with Azerbaijan.

It has been two years since the Karabakh issue was exhausted - Azerbaijan resolved it by force, without waiting for substantive negotiations with Armenia under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group, which, following the Karabakh conflict, also fell into oblivion. Thanks to the destructive stance of this supposedly 'conciliatory' group, Yerevan has managed to maintain the status quo in Karabakh for many years, which explains its desire to return under its umbrella. However, the problem on the Armenian side is more that it is unable to come to terms with the existing reality and is in a state of perpetual expectation from Russia, the CSTO, the US, France, the EU mission, and other structures. But as long as Armenia continues to accuse Azerbaijan of ethnic cleansing of Armenians and claims that Baku allegedly hinders the normalisation process, as Mirzoyan stated the day before, the natural result of Yerevan's destructive policy will be eternal dependence on external forces, which will finally deprive Armenia of the remains of its statehood.