Armenian authorities are trying to mislead their public, expert says

Speaking with Alpha News, Russian political scientist Andrey Areshev commented on Aliyev’s ultimatum and territorial claims against Armenia.

“Associating Ilham Aliyev’s harsh statements with his presidential campaign and explaining everything with his desire to get some political points is a somewhat frivolous approach. We understand that the winner of this election is known in advance. As for the negotiation process, official Baku does not hide its fairly tough position.

It seems to me that underestimating the adversary in negotiations and attributing his rather serious and harsh statements to some opportunistic motivation is a sign of an insufficiently competent approach to negotiating. It could be that the Armenian authorities are simply trying to mislead the Armenian public in this way. I don’t think this is a good approach.

We are receiving quite contradictory information about developments around the agreement. We have no doubt that, having resolved the Karabakh issue in its own way, Baku will continue to pursue its goals by any means. I think that now it mostly focuses on the next stage of information and propaganda pressure. But if the situation drags on, it is clear that Baku may resort to other ways to resolve the issue.

I believe that now its main focus is on the enclaves, and this was also mentioned in interviews. All the main spears are now breaking around the enclaves, which Azerbaijan considers its own and relies, among other things, on the statement of the Armenian side, which has repeatedly declared the size of the territory of the former Azerbaijani SSR.

The Armenian authorities stated that they recognize 86,600 square kilometers, which by default includes these enclaves. Of course, I would like this situation to develop through negotiations. We know how important these territories are for Armenia, but as we see, Baku does not intend to retreat,” the expert noted.