Will Pashinyan start extraditing participants of the Karabakh wars to Baku?

There is not only a lack of convergence between Pashinyan’s Armenia and Aliyev’s Azerbaijan on the most pressing issues—despite official Yerevan’s willingness to make more and more concessions—but a clear crisis has emerged. This is evidenced by Azerbaijan’s renewed focus on its demand for the extradition of all participants in the hostilities in Artsakh.

“The sincere desire for peace and renewal of relations with Azerbaijan will be confirmed by Armenia’s willingness to acknowledge its responsibility and hand over those accused of ‘war crimes,’ especially those hiding in Armenia. However, if Armenia expects its crimes to be forgotten or disappear over time, it is deeply mistaken,” said Hikmet Hajiyev, Assistant to the President of Azerbaijan.

The statements of Aliyev’s aide confirm that there are far more unresolved issues between the parties than the “two articles from the peace agreement” that Nikol Pashinyan, Ararat Mirzoyan and other Armenian officials often reference. These articles concern the withdrawal of claims against each other in international courts and the prohibition of third-party presence on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. It is also important to note that Hajiyev’s proposal for Armenia to “hand over to Baku persons accused of war crimes” came just days after Pashinyan’s new article, in which he not only stated Yerevan’s readiness to “open all the country’s roads to Azerbaijan,” but also expressed bewilderment at Baku’s rejection of Armenian proposals. Hajiyev’s statement signals that Ilham Aliyev does not accept Pashinyan’s proposals and continues to demand a corridor.

Both Pashinyan and Aliyev understand the importance of matching statuses in politics. Recall how, months earlier, Pashinyan, responding to a statement by Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova, said that the level of his communication was between the president and the prime minister of Russia, and therefore he was not going to react to Zakharova’s remarks.

Today, Armenia’s status has been lowered to the point where Pashinyan is not even addressed by any Azerbaijani minister but only by an assistant to Aliyev. Many external experts rightly point out that Baku’s behavior may demonstrate its recognition of Pashinyan’s declining political status in Armenia. By maintaining control over occupied Armenian territories, Azerbaijan appears to be constructing a reality that would allow it to negotiate with a new Armenian government from a stronger position. Pashinyan, de facto, has already been “written off” in Azerbaijan…

Think about it…