Will Azerbaijan introduce a “blacklist” for visiting Armenia? 

Polish President Andrzej Duda paid an official visit to Armenia on November 25-27. In addition to official meetings with the country’s leadership, the Polish president visited Yeraskh and conducted patrols of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border together with EU observers deployed in Armenia. He also met with the Poles, who are part of the mission.

Immediately after the reports about Duda’s contacts with European observers in Yeraskh, official Baku reacted to this event and commented on it. Yesterday it became known that charge d’affaires of Poland Michal Grechilo was summoned to the Azerbaijani foreign ministry, where a protest was expressed in connection with the visit of Polish President Andrzej Duda, who, contrary to the notification of the Azerbaijani side, visited the Armenian-Azerbaijani border as part of the EU mission in Armenia.

“This mission, contrary to its stated goals of contributing to regional stability and building trust between Azerbaijan and Armenia, is widely used as a tool against Azerbaijan. This provocation contradicts Azerbaijani-Polish relations and that it is necessary to avoid steps affecting the legitimate security interests of Azerbaijan,” the release says.

Regardless of whether Armenia really needs EU observers or not, with this statement alone, Baku calls into question Yerevan’s right to pursue independent foreign policy. We will not even talk about the fact that EU observers appeared on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border as a result of a political deal held on October 6, 2022, in Prague, when Nikol Pashinyan surrendered Artsakh and Ilham Aliyev, for his part, agreed to the deployment of EU observers in Armenia. Now, the Azerbaijani regime expresses dissatisfaction with both the actions of the mission and calls into question the right of Armenia to determine the priorities of its policy, both foreign and domestic.

At this rate, the day is not far off when Baku will introduce a “blacklist” for visiting Armenia. The list is similar to the one that applied to persons who visited the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic before the fall of 2023.

A shaved or unshaven Pashinyan will not tell his voters about this. He will not tell that the aggressor country is trying to tell the foreign leader which regions of Armenia to visit and which not. He will not tell you that all this is a consequence of the loss of Karabakh. Calling Shushi “miserable and gray” and Karabakh Azerbaijani, Pashinyan destroyed the strategic depth of the territories of Armenia and the strategic depth of the diplomatic line of defense.

How long do you think the Armenian state can exist relying on the inertia left over from the existence of Artsakh?

Think about it…