Azerbaijan’s Revenge operation pushes Brussels to action Political analyst’s interview for Caliber.Az

Caliber.Az has had an interview with Azerbaijani political analyst Isa Javadov.

- A meeting was held between President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan in the presence of President of the European Council Charles Michel in Brussels on the last day of August. How do you assess these negotiations?

- The meeting of the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia, based on the context in which it was held, can be assessed as positive.

The essence of the context is that Azerbaijan, without waiting for any steps from Armenia, unilaterally implemented paragraph six of the statement dated November 10, 2020, regaining part of the Lachin district and establishing control over the entrance to the Lachin corridor.

This shows the dominance of Baku, which can now control transportation routes to Karabakh. It is also known that the Karabakh issue was not discussed at the talks, which may indirectly show the desire of the sides not to focus on the territorial conflict and direct efforts towards establishing economic cooperation within the mutual respect for territorial integrity.

- An agreement was reached in Brussels to establish a working group to prepare the text of a peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Will it be possible to finally sign such an act after this meeting, or will Armenia drag out the process again? 

- It is too early to make predictions on the signing of a peace agreement as this work requires numerous consultations and meetings to discuss many nuances, including delimitation and demarcation of borders. In a certain sense, this process is complicated by two negotiating platforms, namely, Brussels and Moscow, in which all issues are discussed separately.

The coordination between Russia and the European Union on the Armenian-Azerbaijani track is now quite low amid the current events in Ukraine. The Armenian leadership may try to delay the signing of the peace treaty due to the contradictions of these two sides.

The spirit of competition between Brussels and Moscow may motivate both platforms to achieve more tangible results in the Azerbaijani-Armenian dialogue.

In any case, the September meeting in Moscow is still ahead, and as is known, the issues of transport routes and demarcation/delimitation of borders are mostly resolved through Russia’s assistance as it is directly involved in the regional issues. Therefore, it is important for the topic of developing a peace treaty to be on the agenda of the Moscow meetings as well.

- Is the OSCE Minsk Group still in the past?

- The OSCE Minsk Group has not had authority over the past few years. Accordingly, any attempts to appeal to this organisation are irrelevant today, and one can see that the Armenian leadership and propaganda have already stopped doing this.

References to the format of the OSCE Minsk Group are not mentioned at tripartite meetings. The OSCE Minsk Group’s big failure was that it never voiced a realistic position until 2020 for Azerbaijan not to have to resolve the Karabakh issue by military means.

On the whole, this characterises the OSCE as an organisation that has shown its inefficiency both in Ukraine and Georgia. Moreover, today the OSCE Minsk Group is almost impossible to revive, as its three members are in a state of confrontation with each other.

In this regard, the work with the European Union seems to be more effective as Brussels is interested in establishing peace in the South Caucasus to gain benefits in the form of secure energy and transport projects.

- Did Azerbaijan's recent "Revenge" military operation affect the negotiability of the Armenian leadership?

- I think that the "Revenge" operation pushed Brussels to new actions and advances in the Armenian-Azerbaijani confrontation.

It has become clear since the clashes on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border in November 2021 that Azerbaijan can resort to small tactical military operations to remind the Armenian leadership of the consequences of dragging out a political settlement.

That’s why, there has been such an aphorism as "Cannons are the last argument of kings" since the period of rule of the Prussian monarch Frederick II.