Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev announced on May 4 that since “the Armenian side is misinforming the public days before the parliamentary elections”, he is forced to reveal the contents of the confidential talks.
Aliev mentioned that the Armenian side claims that there is an agreement only on the liberation of five regions (regions near Nagorno-Karabagh), however that, according to Aliev, is incorrect, and in reality an agreement was reached to liberate all seven regions, including Kelbajar and Lachin. According to Aliev, “if the regions are liberated, then refugees will begin to return, and after that the Azerbaijani population will start coming back to Nagorno-Karabagh”. Aliev underlined that “Armenia has accepted that version”. He announced that “Armenia and Nagorno-Karabagh will be tied through Lachin”. The Azerbaijani President also mentioned that there is an agreement to allocate international peacekeeping forces in the conflict zone.
“We are against it, but Armenians are scared and that is why we agreed to that,” he said and added: “The allocation of the peacekeeping forces will be for a limited time.”
As for the status of Nagorno-Karabagh, Aliev said that it will be determined only after the return of the refugees and must correspond to the principle of territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. He also said that “the level of autonomy will be much higher than it was during the Soviet era”.
“Whoever wants independence can go to Armenia,” said Aliev in closing.
Let us recall that recently Armenian and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers Vardan Oskanyan and Elmar Mammedyarov announced that now, more than ever, the conflicting sides are ready for the Nagorno-Karabagh conflict resolution.
Aliev’s announcements were followed by the response of Prime Minister Serge Sargsyan, who said that “there is no such thing”. However, in this case, it is more important to hear the response of Armenia’s Foreign Minister or the president because they are the ones implementing foreign policy and the ones holding direct talks on the Nagorno-Karabagh conflict.
But what happened? The Armenian president Robert Kocharyan or the president’s speaker still haven’t responded to Aliev’s above-mentioned announcements (journalists of well-known presses “forgot” to take advantage of the occasion last week and direct a corresponding question toward Robert Kocharyan and the latter did not refer to this issue in his speech). “168 Hours” was not able to ask the Armenian president’s speaker for comments regarding Aliev’s announcements on Friday. However, the Armenian Foreign Affairs Ministry had responded to Aliev’s announcements on the same day. Functionary of the Foreign Affairs Ministry press and information department Vladimir Karapetyan announced the following:
“It is not the first time that Aliev is trying to announce the contents of the talks. I can say that there was no new “revelation” this time either. As in the past, I can reaffirm our position in the talks, which is based on the principle of the recognition of the autonomy of Nagorno-Karabagh. The other issues that are also on the negotiation table and are being discussed are part of the issue, and will be based on the recognition of the main principle. As far as the war declarations and threats to use military force for conflict resolution made by the Azerbaijani president, the repetition of such announcements and threats goes to show Azerbaijan’s neglect regarding international obligations, as well as weakness and deep distrust.”
The reader should pay attention to the fact that the Foreign Affairs Ministry didn’t deny the announcements made by Aliev; in fact, it even tried to accuse him of announcing the confidentiality of the talks, mentioning that what Aliev said is not very far from reality. On this background, coincidentally, just a couple of days ago some presses published an interview taken with commander of the special squad of Shushi, Zhirair Sefilyan, who is currently in an isolation cell. Each interview differed one from the other, however the main topics were the elections and the Nagorno-Karabagh conflict.
Our Armenian authorities were generous enough to give some representatives of the mass media the opportunity to visit Sefilyan and conduct an interview. With regards to the Karabagh conflict and the above-mentioned announcements made by Aliev, Zhirair Sefiliyan said in all of his interviews that the people of Armenia are against territorial concessions.
“No piece of land and that’s it,” said Sefilyan.
What does all of this mean? What we get is the following picture: the existing Armenian authorities make some promises regarding the Karabagh conflict to each other and then announce that the conflicting sides, more than ever, are ready to resolve the conflict which, if we “translate” from the language of diplomacy, turns out that the Armenian authorities are saying the following: Dear International Community, help us during the upcoming elections and disregard the falsifications so that we can regenerate and resolve the Karabagh conflict which we are so close to now, otherwise, you never know, power may change and everything will start from zero. But we shouldn’t be that naïve to think that the Armenian authorities are getting ready to sign a document regarding the Karabagh conflict. From this perspective, it is no surprise that suddenly a couple of presses publish interviews with Sefiliyan, who says that the people of Armenia are against territorial concessions, “no piece of land and that’s it”. The logic is understandable, right? The elections end, then comes the time to fulfill the promise of “we are, more than ever, ready to resolve the conflict” and the Armenian authorities prove that “see, our people don’t want territorial concessions, they are saying “no piece of land and that’s it”.” It turns out that the Armenian authorities are using Sefilyan, whom they had imprisoned with incomprehensive accusations. But the dangerous thing is that, in essence, the authorities have made some promises with regards to the Karabagh conflict in order to keep power, and they might not be able to fulfill them (although they don’t think so). Let us recall that there was a time when one of the well-known figures said: “Life will show who has done what for Artsakh and who is really selling it”.