Azerbaijan shaping new reality in the South Caucasus In the wake of Ilham Aliyev's Shusha speech

Glorious, free Shusha appears to be not only the cultural capital of Azerbaijan but also meets the necessary conditions to become the intellectual centre of the entire South Caucasus. One can come up to this conclusion after familiarizing themselves with the discussion between President Ilham Aliyev and participants of the fourth international conference “Shaping the Geopolitics of the Greater Eurasia: from Past to Present to Future” dedicated to the 100th anniversary of National Leader Heydar Aliyev in the ancient city.

The Azerbaijani leader’s detailed answers to the questions posed at the conference offer a virtually programmatic view of the development of both the South Caucasus and Central Asia, shedding light on Azerbaijan's role and strategy in this regard.

“We wanted to fill this space with practical steps, with the exchange of views, ideas, mainly with respect to the future development of Azerbaijan and also regional development. Because we cannot ignore the situation in our region and though, we don’t have any risks anymore after the liberation of Karabakh inside the country, but we are not living on an island,” Ilham Aliyev said as a preamble to his speech.  

Indeed, the delays in the peace process are in one way or another unfavourable for the region as a whole. It is no coincidence that the Armenian-Azerbaijani settlement was the subject of a whole cluster of questions during the meeting. That is why the first piece by Caliber.Az following the results of the visit of the president to the Karabagh economic region is devoted to the essence of his answers to this subject.

First of all, Ilham Aliyev drew a parallel between the current negotiating policy of Armenia and its actions during the occupation, calling the current developments "a step forward, and two, three or even five steps back". That is, Ilham Aliyev stressed the endless dragging out of the process by the Armenian side in the hope that "international sponsors will always support them and fight for them", and in the hope of some miracle, a sudden metamorphosis of the situation.

The president made Armenia's position clear on the eve of the talks between the foreign ministers of the two countries in Washington.

“We’ve sent them four copies, four new variants of a draft of the peace agreement. They return their comments. We've been waiting for more than 40 days for the last comments, which we received just a week ago, just prior to the Washington meeting, because they realize that without that the Washington meeting will be absolutely useless. But what we've seen in these comments is again territorial claims against Azerbaijan,” he noted.

Regretting such reckless insistence of the Armenian side, Ilham Aliyev made it clear at the same time that American and European mediators, at least in words, share Azerbaijan's position.

“It was absolutely clear for Armenia, for international players during my numerous communications with the US and EU officials that there should be a two-track approach. One is Armenia-Azerbaijan normalization and another is communications between Azerbaijan`s authorities and the Armenian community in Karabakh. Therefore, any attempt to put the so-called ‘Nagorno-Karabakh Republic’, which does not exist, into the text of the peace treaty is counterproductive,” the Azerbaijani leader pointed out.

And then there was more than a meaningful message for Yerevan and its patrons: "Therefore, we hope that they will be constructive. If not, well, we are not planning to undertake any other measures rather than diplomatic. We had enough of that. Therefore, there’ll be just no peace, no communication. They will be isolated again”. This statement is obviously addressed primarily to those forces which hope to involve Azerbaijan in a large-scale military escalation in order to then accuse it of "ethnic cleansing" and freeze the process of the reintegration of the Karabakh region.

The president reiterated that Armenia itself needs peace first and foremost, otherwise, it will remain in isolation. In particular, Aliyev stressed that "they [Armenians] will have to find the place for them in this new geopolitical configuration. Because all geopolitical situations, not only in the region but globally have changed”. And then there is an equally important remark: “We have our place there, which is very stable and which is becoming more and more solid. But for them, it will be a big challenge.”

Genuinely counting on the reasonableness of the Armenian side and its understanding of the fact ("we already have our place"), the president summed up his thoughts about the current negotiation process with cautious optimism: "So, I hope that Washington negotiations will produce - if not results, but at least kind of signs of progress".

Ilham Aliyev's response was also of particular interest, saying he was in favour of direct contact between the countries.

"At the same time, I think that the best way how to come to an agreement is direct negotiations between Azerbaijan and Armenia without any mediator and without any facilitator or spoiler," the president said.

Ilham Aliyev summed up his proposal by talking about the destructive role of the Minsk Group in the 30-year Armenian occupation, thus indicating the obstruction of a certain part of the Western establishment to advance negotiations. It also suggests that Armenia itself is often not free to choose and acts in the wake of these forces. Direct negotiations would thus leave Armenia alone with reality and force it to accept it more quickly, without being deceived by false promises of various kinds of patrons.

Analysing the fact that the world community is prejudiced against Azerbaijan and its territorial integrity, in particular the US position, the president said: “We were much more sensitive to that. Now, we are less sensitive because we've done what the international community was supposed to do, the UN Security Council, permanent members were supposed to do - implement resolutions of the Security Council.”

And then Ilham Aliyev shared memories of Azerbaijan's attempts to persuade the US to repeal discriminatory Amendment 907, and he was joined by Khafiz Pashayev, rector of ADA University and at that time (1993-2006) ambassador of Azerbaijan to the US. Summing up his previous idea, the president said: "Now the most important thing is to change the reality on the ground and move on."

This remark, in fact, reflects the credo of Azerbaijani politics at the present stage: using the entire arsenal of resources, not only sitting and waiting, asking for a change in the rules of the game, but gradually changing the reality around, and thus creating new rules.

Aliyev expressed the same idea a little earlier, speaking about integration with the EU and NATO.

“We even did not sign an association agreement with the EU, unlike some of the members of the Eastern Partnership Program. But that was not because we didn't want to be closer. We don't want to have a kind of unilateral format of cooperation. To my mind, I'm absolutely sincere with you, the association agreement is not an agreement in the normal sense of the word. It's just a list of instructions, which have been presented to those countries which joined this format. It is their choice, and we will respect it, but this is not our choice. We have chosen a different path. And we signed strategic partnership agreements and declarations with nine members of the EU. So, this is one-third of member states. And strategic partnership declarations, which have been signed or adopted, do not make a difference and have a much higher value than association agreement,” the president is sure.

And it's also about changing reality. And about a skill that Azerbaijan’s neighbours still cannot realise, continuing to be in a somnambulistic state with visions of chimaeras, suffering, cultural superiority, national exclusivity and other myths. In the new reality, Armenia will have to make a choice between giving up these illusions and the final loss of statehood.