Record-high ‘Dovishness’

The beginning of the new year has brought a fresh example of Nikol Pashinyan’s exemplary ‘tolerance’. Perhaps, the behaviour of the Prime Minister in the regional arena is even worthy of the title of ‘national doormat’. It is this image that comes to mind for most Armenians after Pashinyan has already managed to diligently turn his both cheeks – and not only – for verbal slaps from Baku.

Judge for yourself: the president of Azerbaijan revealed the open secret in an interview with local media, dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. Aliyev’s fundamental position is that Armenia is an ‘enemy’, a ‘threat to the region’ and a ‘fascist state’. In principle, there is no need to speak about respect for the sovereign Armenian territory. With perseverance worthy of a better cause, the Azerbaijani leader promotes the narrative of the uncontested opening of the so-called ‘Zangezur Corridor’. One does not need to be a great statesman and strategist to discern the total hostility towards his neighbour in Aliyev’s rhetoric, which excludes any peace negotiations. And if you call a spade a spade, then his ill-fated speech to journalists contains a combo of existential risks for Armenia, an information warm-up of escalating tensions in the South Caucasus, and regional militarisation.

How did the Turkish commandant Pashinyan respond to Aliyev’s attack? Well, this, of course, cannot be called an answer. The autumn barber decided to limit himself to statements in the mold of ‘let’s live together‘ and other nonsense: ‘We will not use the language of aggression, but the language of dialogue. We will continue to focus on delimitation, on agreeing on the text of the peace treaty, on the implementation of the ‘Crossroads of Peace’ project, on humanitarian issues, including the issues of clarifying the fate of the missing persons.’ It seems that someone forgot the text of the oath, which states, among other things, that the prime minister should promote respect for the sovereignty and interests of the Republic of Armenia. Although, Nikol Pasha has had progressive political amnesia for a long time. The signal is lost. This happens somewhere in the vicinity of the ‘crossroads of peace’.