Armenia – Caucasus’s powder keg, or region on verge of new war

By Azernews

By Fuad Muxtar-Aqbabali

Hardly a day goes by without shelling of Azerbaijani civilian targets and front line villages by Armenian occupying forces. The enemy resorts to similar provocations, especially when Azerbaijan plays host to international events.

The latest deterioration along the front line also overlapped with the start of the fourth Islamic Solidarity Games. Yerevan made an attempt to deteriorate the situation by advancing “Osa surface-to-air missile system of the Armenian air defense forces to a new position… to take control of the airspace,” the Azerbaijani Defence Ministry said in a press release on 15 May 2017.

Funny enough, three days later, finally a statement by the OSCE Minsk Group came. “According to information collected from multiple reliable sources, on 15 May, Azerbaijani armed forces fired a missile across the Line of Contact, striking military equipment. On the evening of 16 May and continuing into 17 May, Armenian armed forces retaliated with mortar fire of various calibers. These actions by both sides represent significant violations of the ceasefire and are cause for alarm,” the statement read.

As usual, without denunciation of the aggressor and explaining the reasons why Azerbaijan destroyed the enemy’s military equipment, the group remained loyal to years-old style and expressed concern about the “violations of the ceasefire”.

The same group, however, failed to react to a statement by Maj-Gen Andranik Makaryan, commander of the Russian-Armenian combined group of forces, who threatened Azerbaijan with military actions if Baku goes to war to liberate the occupied Karabakh and surrounding seven adjacent districts.

Armenia as a red herring

For nearly two decades into the XXI century, the aggressor state of Armenia in the South Caucasus has been retaining about 20 per cent of Azerbaijani territories under occupation. Armenia was, is, and will undoubtedly be a powder keg in the whole Caucasus, distracting nations from cementing their deeply-cherished independence and sovereignty.

Unless official Yerevan is taught a bitter lesson, the aggression against Azerbaijani ancestral lands, for sure to go on endlessly, and no hopes that the junta regimes driven by ultra-nationalistic motives will give up preposterous claims on the neighbor’s internationally-recognized lands.

Yerevan’s belligerent policies remain an imminent threat not only to Azerbaijan but also to Georgia, another nation in the South Caucasus. Carrying similar threats for centuries and serving alien plans’ realization in the region, Armenia has also deteriorated own plight plagued by corruption, debts, economic and political dependency, the exodus of residents and internal tension.

The nation - home to Russian military bases – has so far failed to realize the dreadful and aggressive nature of its policies. It stubbornly refuses to end treacherous policies, and tries with the help of patrons and anti-Azerbaijani circles to deny the aggression. It both retains the occupation of Azerbaijani lands and serves malign forces’ far-reaching plans to keep the region in explosive and desperate situation.

Azerbaijan rightly refuses to reconcile itself with the status quo and is set to change it at any cost to end the unjust occupation. Armenia also serves interests of states who vehemently oppose Azerbaijan’s determination to safeguard hard-won independence, restore the territorial integrity to navigate through unseen and unpredictable obstacles in the region.

Armenia as well distracts Azerbaijan’s attention from strengthening own state institutions, investment in the national economy and building prosperous future for citizens. With the occupation of Azerbaijani lands and ignoring international laws, official Yerevan plays into hands of states driven by own plans and plots to keep the region in turmoil for years to come.

With the help of foreign pro-Armenian politicians and organizations, official Yerevan and the diaspora also hopelessly tried to block Azerbaijan’s oil and gas pipelines, the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum railways project, designed both to be conducive to the regional and global economic development and to help Europe to diversify gas supplies away from Russia.

Carte blanche or challenge to Putin?

Deeply-polarized by almost two-decade rule of the rogue regimes and economic hardships, official Yerevan shows no signs of relinquishing aggressive policies against the neighbor and ceding Azerbaijani lands to bring about peace and harmony to the Caucasus. On the contrary, the corrupt and criminal regime paves the way for the possible fresh turmoils, becoming instrumental in further aggravation of the situation across the region.

Azerbaijan is in complete control of the situation along the entire perimeter of the front and has to step up pressure on the aggressor country through inflicting heavy casualties on it. Official Baku has to constantly apply political, economic, diplomatic, military leverage over Armenia to stifle any move for justification.

It is to no avail and useless to pin hopes on the OSCE Minsk Group to resolve the long-drawn-out conflict. Azerbaijan has long endured the status quo and hoped that the international mediators will finally live up to the obligations and commitments though almost 30 years have been lost in the hope of triumph of justice.

Over this period, Armenia has been misappropriating neighboring Azerbaijan's our national resources, destroying historical monuments, mosques, erasing their identities through changing names of districts and villages.

Azerbaijan couldn’t and did not reconcile itself with the endless occupation. The April 2006 flare-up proved the might of the Azerbaijani army to act, and as the Azerbaijani Supreme Commander-in-Chief said “the Armenian armed forces need to draw a conclusion from the April fighting, or there will be more successful military operations, like Lala Tapa”.

Describing the April fighting as yet another historic victory, President Aliyev said that “the world witnessed that Azerbaijan will never tolerate Armenia’s occupying policy. We must restore our territorial integrity and we will. It’s our ancestral land. The Lala Tapa military operation is our symbol of heroism and it made a history...”

The aggressor itself has been hardly hit by the junta regime’s aggression against Azerbaijani lands. The unfounded military spending, political apathy, poverty, emigration and others have reduced this resource-poor country, built on our lands and funded for 70 years from Soviet budget, to the verge of collapse.

Judging by Armenia’s moves, official Yerevan has charted several scenarios out of the current situation.

Firstly, to let Russia cement its dominance over the country despite domestic discontent; secondly, to mobilize pro-Armenian forces across Europe and the USA to bring pressure on Azerbaijan. Fortunately, Donald Trump’s victory disillusioned the Armenian Diaspora and deprived it of the leverage.

Thirdly, Armenia seeks to get support of as many countries as possible to disappoint Azerbaijan, and encourage investment in the poverty-stricken country.

Hit hard by the on-going economic recession, the exodus of citizens, the loss of even symbolic independence, Armenia is making futile attempts to make a comeback after the devastating 2016 April defeat in the hands of the Azerbaijani army. Azerbaijan has been on full alert for threats coming from Armenia and works day and night to confront them, using all available resources.

Despite Azerbaijan’s persistent calls and UN resolutions, urging the aggressor state to unconditionally liberate the occupied lands, Yerevan beats about the bush. On the contrary, it plots fresh and appalling plans to cause blatant provocation against Azerbaijan. Another latest provocation of Armenia came to light when Azerbaijan arrested a number of military servicemen and civilians, who, it said, provided military secrets to the aggressor Armenia.

Another trick Armenia resorted to is to closely involve Moscow’s 102nd military base, stationed in Armenia’s northern city of Gyumri and part of the Southern Military District of the Russian armed forces, in its aggression against Azerbaijan. At the same time, under the 2016 interstate treaty, the military base has been subordinated to the Russian-Armenian combined group of forces.

Maj-Gen Andranik Makaryan, commander of the combined group of forces, bragged about the group’s readiness to neutralize a potential threat from Turkey. “If there is a threat from Turkey, we will throw ourselves in the enemy’s way. This is enshrined in the documents,” the general out of nowhere told a news conference.

Makaryan also claimed that the military group would be used against Azerbaijan if the latter goes to war to liberate occupied Karabakh and surrounding seven adjacent districts. Asked if Putin can ban their attack or not, the arrogant general was quoted as saying: “No, he can’t.”

This claim remains to be seen and tested.