"Paris is behind Borrell's anti-Azerbaijani rhetoric" Experts opinion on Caliber.Az

Some Europopulists continue to resort to manipulation and outright lies, making blatantly anti-Azerbaijani statements. The matter especially concerns High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell, who has lately been making counterproductive statements on a regular basis.

Borrel recently lashed out at Azerbaijan with unfounded accusations of "expelling 150,000 Armenians from Karabakh", to which he received a worthy response from President Ilham Aliyev. It should be recalled that speaking at the forum "Karabakh: Returning Home after 30 Years. Achievements and difficulties", President Aliyev clearly noted: "Mr Borrell's recent statements are absolutely counterproductive. And his statement about 150,000 Armenians leaving Karabakh is a lie. If Mr Borrel continues in the same vein, in a month he will say that there were 200,000. Depending on what dreams he has. But again, not only these manipulations with figures, but also accusations against Azerbaijan of what we did not do are absolutely unacceptable. It is all the more strange that his country, as our Foreign Ministry has already stated, had itself suffered from separatism. So how can he defend separatists? This is very strange."

I wonder what reason Borrell has for getting angry with Azerbaijan? As they say, what fly bit him? With these questions Caliber.Az turned to the chairman of the Centre for Analysis of International Relations (AIR Center), Azerbaijani political scientist Farid Shafiyev and the director of the international NGO "Centre for Political Analysis and Information Security", member of the German Council on Foreign Policy, chairman of the Berlin Committee for Strategic Partnership in Eurasia Svyatoslav Andrianov.

According to Farid Shafiyev, Borrell's anti-Azerbaijani statements so often heard can be interpreted as a reflection of the sentiments of some part of the EU elites.

"I think that, in all likelihood, Borrel expresses the sentiments of the elites representing France and several other European states. Here, of course, it is perplexing that a person from Spain, which is experiencing problems with the growth of separatism, is in this case just as much engaged in encouraging separatism. But we have seen these double standards for a long time. Undoubtedly, it is worth noting the unfortunate tendency that the European Union is increasingly taking Armenia's side and becoming almost its advocate. This is evident from the fact of the presence of the EU mission in Armenia, the way the recent meetings were held, for example, in Granada, as well as the way the EU makes decisions and statements on the South Caucasus without taking into account the interests of Azerbaijan," Shafiyev said.

According to him, there are, of course, voices in the EU expressing a more cautious viewpoint, because Brussels understands the importance of Azerbaijan, its role in the geopolitics of the region and that a one-sided, pro-Armenian policy deprives the EU of the role it could play in mediation and peace efforts in the South Caucasus. And the more counterproductive statements are made against Baku, the more chances the EU has of being left out of the loop in the processes in the South Caucasus.

"In this case, it is worth noting how such a strategy works in a recent example. For example, the US tried to put pressure on Baku, but having realised that it did not work, they backtracked and as a result, Secretary of State [Antony] Blinken sent [James] O'Brien, the same one who recently tried to dictate to us how and what we should do next, to Baku to settle the differences," the AIR Center head noted.            

As for the notorious figure of "150,000" voiced by Barrel, Shafiyev believes that it should be taken into account that the High Commissioner does not collect statistics, which means that someone from his office, who clearly takes a pro-Armenian position, is putting false calculations on his desk.

"The situation is roughly the same with the Armenian ‘genocide’, which since 2015 has only been gaining ‘dead souls’: it started with about three hundred thousand, and now as many as two million Armenians are listed as victims of the "genocide". And all this information heresy, propagated by the Armenian lobby, is travelling around Europe and the world without any problems. Although in reality many times more Turks died in the events of those years.

Based on the above, we can state that a whole anti-Azerbaijani coalition is working against us in the European Union. This fact should be borne in mind and be ready for such confrontation," Shafiyev emphasised. 

According to Svyatoslav Andrianov, in the process of analysing Borrell's statements, one quickly realises that they are often quite biased. In addition, the politician can be inaccurate in figures and facts and inconsistent in his statements.  As the political scientist believes, all of this may indicate either Borrell's lack of foresight, which, given his high office, is hard to believe, or excessive emotionality, which, given his ethnic origin, may well be a fair assumption.

"Recently, it is quite common to hear that someone is behind such statements, that they are favourable to someone. I would like to refrain from such accusations for the simple reason that almost every major politician has someone behind him. It is not necessarily some ‘puppeteer’ who deprives the actor of his will and reason, on the contrary, most often it is either his political party or other organisation to which he has certain obligations, or his campaign sponsors, or simply his wife. Having a team does not deprive a politician of freedom, and if he says something, he does not always do it to please someone. Most often, he really thinks so, which in no way detracts from his focus on his voters, because the voter in European political realities is the source of the power of any politician and Borrell is no exception," Andrianov emphasised. 

According to him, European politicians are making more and more absurd and scandalous statements every year in pursuit of ratings.  If earlier, in the years of economic prosperity, the European voter liked it, now, in the economically difficult period, inter-party and intra-party struggles cause more and more irritation among the population.

"It is high time for European politicians to think about changing their behavioural paradigm, but they are so caught up in the process, so used to thinking and speaking within the framework of the usual discourse, that they continue to inertly "express concern", "express solidarity", "strongly condemn" and so on. Where have they all been for the last 30 years, while Karabakh was under the rule of Armenian separatists?

On December 11, Borrell wrote on the X network that "at a meeting with the EU and Armenian foreign ministers in Brussels, the EU's full support for the peace process and commitment to further support the normalisation process was reaffirmed". And this is just a couple of days after his statements about the 150,000 Karabakh Armenians who have come from nowhere. One is tempted to ask: are the statements that "Azerbaijan has driven these people out of their homes" the same "full support" for the peace process? In this regard, the statement of Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Bayramov, who reminded Borrell at a meeting in Brussels on 11 December that the only way to peace and stability in the region is the establishment of good-neighbourly relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia based on mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, is absolutely fair.

You will ask, what about Borrel? In my opinion, his statements will not change anytime soon. But only fewer and fewer people in the world will perceive them, including his voters", Andrianov concluded.