Aliyev has unveiled his election campaign

When snap elections in Azerbaijan were announced at the end of 2023, logic and common sense suggested that Ilham Aliyev would go to new elections with a new political project.

Moreover, the Azerbaijani and Turkish press, as well as experts of the two countries, did not hide that the next stage of the fight against Armenia would be the so-called “Western Azerbaijan” project, that is, a quasi-state controlled by Baku on the territory of Armenia. It was obvious that the basis of Aliyev’s political project, with which he will go to the snap elections in 2024, will be the concept of “Western Azerbaijan”, which presupposes the dissolution of the Republic of Armenia.

Nevertheless, given the fact that a significant part of the Armenian public, and especially its part called the “expert community”, is committed to naturalistic approaches to the perception of reality, it was necessary that the draft of this project be presented personally by Ilham Aliyev to have at least a theoretical understanding of the threat hovering over Armenia. The President of Azerbaijan did this in the first days of 2024.

The day before, the President of Azerbaijan had an interview with local media and made a number of very important statements about the relations between official Baku and Yerevan.

So, according to Aliyev, Azerbaijan is not going to accept Nikol Pashinyan’s proposal and withdraw troops from the Armenian territories occupied in 2020-2022 and the Armenian city of Jermuk is considered Azerbaijan’s “historical territory”. It became more than obvious that instead of preparing to “open borders with Armenia,” Baku and its supporter Ankara are preparing a new attack against Armenia.

Now let’s look at the most important part of Aliyev’s recent statements, the part that ensured Pashinyan’s status as a political bankrupt.

Ilham Aliyev stated: “Azerbaijanis should travel from Azerbaijan to Azerbaijan without any inspections. This route must be protected. If Armenia does not fulfill our condition, we don’t intend to open the border with Armenia in any other area, and it will remain at a dead end forever.”

Aliyev’s statement means that even after receiving Artsakh, Azerbaijan did not abandon any of its demands related to Armenia.

In addition, Turkiye has always stated that the “normalization” of relations with Armenia depends on the relations between Baku and Yerevan, and until Azerbaijan is “satisfied”, Turkiye is not going to open the border with Armenia. Aliyev’s statement, in turn, means that “Azerbaijan is dissatisfied,” which means that the border between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Turkiye will not be opened.

Aliyev’s statements also suggest that there will be no “peace treaty” between the countries.

This, in turn, means that Pashinyan is a total political bankrupt. All his narratives have been destroyed. He doesn’t even have anything to give his constituents. The year has just begun, but we can already say with confidence that this is the year of Pashinyan’s personal failure.

By surrendering Artsakh, recognizing the “enclaves” as part of Azerbaijan, and refusing to raise the Artsakh issue and the issue of the rights of the Artsakh people in negotiations with Baku, Pashinyan not only did not solve the problems of Armenia with Azerbaijan, but simply allowed the Azerbaijani armed forces, equipment, and military infrastructure to stand on the border with Armenia and, in some cases, make violations with impunity.

Due to the loss of Artsakh, Azerbaijani military equipment and troops are located two hours away from Yerevan if you come from Jermuk, and one hour away if you come from Yeraskh.

Nikol Pashinyan brought all this to our border.