West threatens Armenia with war, and Azerbaijan with sanctions

Last week, official Moscow clearly demonstrated its commitment to regulate the process of signing a peace treaty between Yerevan and Baku. Thus, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin stated that the peace treaty between Azerbaijan and Armenia should clearly ensure the rights and security of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, and Moscow, according to him, provided the parties with ideas in this regard.

Russian President Vladimir Putin reaffirmed Russia’s commitments, not only saying that there were no obstacles to signing an agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan but also noting that the Russian side was ready to host negotiations in Moscow. We are talking, among other things, about the negotiations of the foreign ministers and experts of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

It is obvious that these messages from Moscow could not be approved by the US and the EU and also could not be ignored by official Washington and Brussels. And apparently, it was decided to put pressure on both Yerevan and Baku at once, so that the parties “at the last moment” did not refuse to sign the agreement on the Western negotiating platform, which should finally legitimize and finalize the process of changing the geopolitical image of the region with the expulsion of Russia from the South Caucasus.
So, a few days after Mikhail Galuzin voiced the idea of ensuring the rights and security of the Armenians of Karabakh in the treaty, and mentioned that Russia has proposals, which obviously include the extension of the stay of Russian peacekeepers in Artsakh, PACE adopted a resolution on Karabakh, stating that there were allegations and reasonable suspicion that the situation in Karabakh could amount to ethnic cleansing.

This is a “yellow card” for Ilham Aliyev, who understands perfectly well that both the UN Mission that visited Karabakh after ethnic cleansing and a number of other international organizations have recorded a number of crimes committed by Azerbaijan in Karabakh. However, due to political feasibility, they currently refrain from publishing this information, waiting for the resolution of the situation with the signing of a peace treaty on the Western negotiating platform. It is obvious that if “Aliyev fails”, he will be called out for ethnic cleansing in Karabakh and the use of phosphorus weapons during the 44-day war, as well as many of his offshore accounts in the West. Even mass unrest in Baku is not excluded, following the example of the summer of 2020, when Turkiye activated all its agents in Azerbaijan, putting Aliyev before a choice: either a war against Armenia and Artsakh or the loss of power through revolutionary upheavals.

In turn, the American edition of Politico, referring to the words allegedly said by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, reported that “the Azerbaijani military may invade the southern regions of Armenia in the next few weeks” (Syunik – ed.). This is also a signal to Armenia that the refusal to sign a peace treaty on the Western negotiating platform is fraught with a new military escalation for Armenia.

You may ask, who will be responsible for the new escalation if the West puts pressure on both Baku and Yerevan? Firstly, the trick of the summer of 2020 can be repeated with Aliyev, when the processes inside Azerbaijan pushed him to start a war, and secondly, have any of you heard that the terrorists brought to our region by Turkiye in 2020 left the region after a 44-day war?

The West is not much concerned about the interests of both Armenia and Azerbaijan. Washington, London, and Brussels need a peace treaty on the Western platform in order for the North-South project, which provides, among other things, the connection of Russia to Iran’s railway system, not to be implemented. And if for this it is necessary to unleash several more wars in the region, the West will do it; if it is necessary to blackmail Aliyev or Pashinyan, the West will do it.

Although, judging by the fact that Nikol Pashinyan’s family newspaper calls Russian President Vladimir Putin an “offended bride”, and that Pashinyan himself switched to a boycott of Armenia’s participation in the CSTO after the boycott of Armenia’s participation in the CIS, the “revolutionary leader” has already made his strategic choice, with all that this entails for him and for Armenia in general.