Ara Poghosyan: Azerbaijan hopes to achieve new concessions through forceful pressure

According to political scientist Ara Poghosyan, ahead of the Armenian-Azerbaijani talks, official Baku is trying to force new concessions from Armenia with the threat of force.

“The threat of force and its direct use have a crucial role in the political position of the Azerbaijani authorities. This, of course, depends on the circumstances—whether those circumstances allow the direct use of force or whether they only allow the threat of its use. Unfortunately, the actions of the Armenian authorities give the Azerbaijani authorities hope that their conduct will be effective and their pressure will influence Armenia. We saw how the Armenian authorities announced red lines, but as a result of Baku’s policy of pressure, Armenia started changing its red lines every time. This gives Azerbaijan hope that it can achieve new concessions and strategic goals through forceful pressure,” Ara Poghosyan said.

The day before, during a visit to Khojaly, the President of Azerbaijan made a new threat, saying that “the only way for Armenia is to accept all the conditions of Azerbaijan and abandon territorial claims against Azerbaijan.”

Ilham Aliyev said this ahead of a meeting of the foreign ministers of the two countries, which is scheduled for February 28–29 in Berlin.

Political scientist Ara Poghosyan has no expectations from these talks.

“This will be just another meeting, and the so-called peace agreement is still far from becoming a reality,” he said.

Commenting on the statement of the Prime Minister of Armenia about the likelihood of Azerbaijan’s attack, the political scientist emphasized that the risk of war has always been high.

“Pashinyan’s statement has two directions: firstly, being in the capital of France, which is currently the main military and political partner of Armenia, he attempted to obtain assistance from France; another question is what kind of assistance this will be. However, Nikol Pashinyan’s statement seemed strange to me, since for a long time he and his team have stated that we are approaching an era of peace and Azerbaijan is constructive.

And when we were talking about the likelihood of war and the failure of the so-called peace treaty, we were accused of treason. But they had to face reality and accept the likelihood of war. They announced this only when this possibility increased and Azerbaijan made threats to use force. Thus, they did not give the people the opportunity to be informed and demand that the authorities take appropriate steps to increase the resistance of the people and the state,” Ara Poghosyan added.