Why is Aliyev hesitating to conclude a peace deal with the Pashinyan government?

Azerbaijan’s APA news agency, citing a diplomatic source, reported that Baku rejected US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s proposal to organize a meeting of the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan on the sidelines of the OSCE Ministerial Council in Malta. According to the same media, “Baku does not want the United States to participate in the peace agenda at all, since the administration of US President Joe Biden is pursuing an unfair, biased policy towards Azerbaijan.”

The hypocrisy of the Azerbaijani official agencies, of course, is striking: the United States was the main actor, the moderator of the Prague 2022 conspiracy against Artsakh. Nikol Pashinyan surrendered Artsakh in accordance with the “John Bolton plan”. In June of this year, US Assistant Secretary of State James O’Brien, speaking about the ethnic cleansing in Artsakh in 2023, noted that “the United States does not yet have a clear assessment of what happened in Karabakh in September 2023.” And today, Aliyev complains about the unfair policy of the American administration.

It should also be noted that even without Blinken’s initiative, the Mirzoyan-Bayramov meeting on the sidelines of the OSCE summit was not planned, as stated by Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ani Badalyan on December 4, even though during the days of the COP29 summit, representatives of official Baku stated that “a new stage of talks with Armenia will start in December.”

It can be assumed that Baku is still preparing to increase pressure on Yerevan, and the refusal to negotiate is also part of Aliyev’s strategy. However, it is already possible to talk about the reasonable doubts that “even after receiving everything” (Syunik, the new Constitution of the Republic of Armenia, the disarmament of the Armenian army, the withdrawal of Armenia from the CSTO, the withdrawal of Russian troops from Armenia, etc.), Ilham Aliyev will not finalize the “peace agreement” with Armenia. These well-founded doubts are based on one fundamental problem.

It is perfectly clear that Pashinyan usurped the power and public administration in Armenia, subordinating it to the demands of his family and a narrow circle of confidants (the situation with the already former member of the Civil Contract faction, Hovik Aghazaryan, is a vivid proof of this).

Pashinyan actually destroyed the institution of elections and the electoral process in Armenia. If the previous government was famous for electoral fraud, the current government solves its issues through post-election fraud (there are many examples: Parakar, Vedi, Vanadzor, Gyumri, etc.).

This causes Baku to fear that any new government in Armenia may reconsider not only the results of the rigged referendum on constitutional changes but also begin to revise the so-called “peace agreement” to establish a more just peace in the region. This means that the preservation of Pashinyan’s power in Armenia today solves only two tasks: ensuring the personal safety of Pashinyan and his inner circle (the story with Aghazaryan proves that the special services have long ceased to perform their direct functions and are subordinated to the interests and whims of one person) and ensuring the personal well-being of the same circle of people at the expense of state resources.

Think about it…