MP: Armenian rally ahead of Brussels meeting another government “show”
By Sabina Mammadli
Azerbaijani MP Jeyhun Mammadov has described the Armenian opposition's rally as another “show” organized by the government ahead of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and EU Council President Charles Michel in Brussels on April 6.
“A natural question arises: why haven’t these rallies been held until today? Why was this rally held the day before the Brussels meeting? Whom do the Armenian authorities want to deceive? Undoubtedly, the main goal of this 'show' is to use public opinion as a pretext and insure themselves against possible scenarios during negotiations,” Mammadov noted.
The MP emphasized that the Armenian leadership frequently used such tactics to stall the negotiations in order to gain time.
According to him, this demonstrates that Armenia's main goal is to disrupt the negotiation process and refuse to sign a peace treaty with Azerbaijan and that such an approach has already become the country's state policy.
Mammadov emphasized that both Pashinyan and his Western patrons are well aware that sooner or later work on the peace treaty, the delimitation of borders with Azerbaijan, the opening of communications, and the solution of other issues must begin.
“The sooner this happens, the better it will be for Armenia. Azerbaijan will never back down from its legitimate position... Armenia must draw serious conclusions from the events of the 2020 second Karabakh war," he added.
Political expert Jeyhun Ahmadli noted that the organization of such a mass action before the Brussels meeting indicated the intention of the revanchist circles to dissuade Pashinyan from signing a possible peace treaty with Azerbaijan.
He noted that the conditions proposed by Azerbaijan are already known to the Armenian public.
“The key point for the revanchists is that if the peace process begins, they become political corpses. The revanchists in Armenia, Pashinyan, and his Western patrons are all well aware that the Karabakh conflict has already been resolved, there is no way back, and attempts to put forward additional conditions will have no effect," added Ahmadli.
To recap, the truce violation was registered on April 6 when Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, European Council President Charles Michel and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met in Brussels. After the meeting, Michel said that Azerbaijan and Armenia agreed to instruct the foreign ministries of the two countries to work on a future peace treaty.
Earlier Aliyev stated that peace will return to the Caucasus based on the five principles Baku recently proposed for normalizing relations with Armenia.
He made the remarks during a meeting with Polish Foreign Minister, OSCE Chairman-in-Office Zbigniew Rau on March 31.
“The five principles we have initiated reflect the norms of international law and good international conduct... Reciprocal recognition of territorial integrity and inviolability of international borders, and then the delimitation of borders – I think that peace will come to the Caucasus on this basis. We want it,” he said.
The president emphasized that these principles are fundamental to any country's interstate relations.
“We are seeing the potential for active cooperation amongst the three countries of the South Caucasus, and I think that this will be important not only for these countries but also for the wider region,” he said.
The trilateral ceasefire deal signed by the Azerbaijani, Russian and Armenian leaders on November 10, 2020, ended the three-decade conflict over Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region which along with the seven adjacent regions came under the occupation of Armenian armed forces in the war in the early 1990s.
The deal also stipulated the return of Azerbaijan's Kalbajar, Aghdam and Lachin regions. Before the signing of the peace deal, Azerbaijan liberated 300 villages, settlements, city centers, and historic Shusha city that had been under Armenian occupation for about 30 years.
On January 11, 2021, the Azerbaijani, Russian and Armenian leaders signed the second statement since the end of the 44-day war. The newly-signed statement was set to implement clause 9 of the November 2020 statement related to the unblocking of all economic and transport communications in the region.
On November 26, 2021, the Azerbaijani, Russian and Armenian leaders signed a statement and agreed on a number of issues, including the demarcation and delimitation of the Azerbaijani-Armenian border by late 2021, some points related to humanitarian issues and the issue of unblocking of transport corridors which applies to the railway and to automobile communications.
On December 14, 2021, during the Brussels meeting, organized between Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders at the initiative of European Council President Charles Michel, the sides reaffirmed their commitment to the conditions agreed in the Sochi meeting.
Both sides agreed to establish a temporary working group on the delimitation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
The issue of demining the liberated territories of Azerbaijan was also brought up on the agenda, and the European Union's readiness to provide technical assistance to Azerbaijan in this regard was underlined at the meeting.
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