With the help of Turkey, Azerbaijan may actually use force, says expert

Boris Rozhin, an expert at Russia’s Center for Military-Political Journalism, commented to Alpha News on Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s statement about a possible war if Azerbaijan’s demands for the surrender of Tavush villages are not met.

According to the expert, there is no likelihood that Azerbaijan will stop at these villages.

“Baku, taking advantage of the lack of demarcation and delimitation of borders, puts forward various territorial claims to Armenia. This applies not only to these four villages, since Armenia is now in a dismantled state. There are problems with the army and problems with the political leadership, so Armenia is not able to fully defend even its own borders. That is why Armenia is now constantly making requests for help from Russia, France, Iran, and a number of other countries. But in fact, based on Pashinyan’s statements, we see that he is ready to give away these villages; he has already virtually fulfilled the demands for the transfer of four more villages to Azerbaijan.

However, there is no likelihood that Azerbaijan will stop even in this area,” Rozhin said.

According to the expert, Azerbaijan takes advantage of Turkey’s support and may well use force.

“Pashinyan, at a meeting with locals, directly stated that if these four villages are not given away, Azerbaijan may try to take them by force. In principle, Azerbaijan uses its advantages, Turkey’s support, and is quite capable of doing this, taking advantage of the fact that France is far away and is capable of little, and Russia is busy in the special military operation. In fact, one of the countries that can stand up for Armenia is Iran, which warned that it would not tolerate changing the borders of Armenia by force and that it was ready to use. However, this concerns, first of all, Southern Armenia, and regarding these Tavush villages, Iran is less specific. Therefore, Pashinyan is scaring the population that if they don’t leave now, there will be a war,” the military columnist emphasized.

“In terms of Azerbaijan’s interests, while Russia is busy, France is far away, and there is Pashinyan in Yerevan, Azerbaijan must seize the moment. Because then there may no longer be such a favorable situation. Here there is an opportunity, including using force, to increase their territories and annex some villages.

Since international law does not guarantee anything to anyone now, you can take whatever you can. Actually, Turkish President Recep Erdogan understood this a long time ago, and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, as a diligent student, is doing the same thing. We saw how Turkey acts in Syria, Iraq, and on the territory of other countries; how Turkey helped Azerbaijan in Karabakh; how Turkey participated in Libya; and how it tried to seize oil fields. The old agreements that ensured interaction between countries are simply losing their meaning,” Rozhin concluded.