The growth of Azerbaijan's political subjectivity

Should Azerbaijan solve modern issues in the context of its enhanced political subjectivity?

If answered positively, the Foreign Ministry and the Presidential apparatus of Azerbaijan should not have disavowed Isfandiyar Vahabzade's statement about Vladimir Zhirinovsky and the Russian people but should have linked his demarche with new trends in politics introduced and intensively cultivated by the leader of the LDPR who once compared Azerbaijanis to a flock of sheep controlled by one shepherd. Let's agree that "donkeys", "pigs" and "sheep" go back to one and the same zoological lexicon incorporated into post-Soviet politics by Vladimir Volfovich and designed to "brighten up" the execution of orders coming from above.

In early August, the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan protested against the statements of Zhirinovsky who expressed his opinion that Russia should return to all the territories of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union as saying that the South Caucasus is a zone of Moscow's influence. It should be noted that Zhirinovsky's plain statement is, as always, frankly boorish: ...we call the dear leader of Azerbaijan and say one – on-one: Ilham, your father was a great and wise man-Heydar Aliyev. Wonderful, I knew him. Therefore, Ilham, you will have the territory that you want, but no one has the right to a single Russian soldier! Even view in dim light! Do you understand me? And he understands perfectly well that he will lose his post, that he has a dictatorship there, there are a lot of opposition forces there. If Biden wants to, he would be overthrown there within two weeks. And only we can save him, as we saved Pashinyan."

But why all of a sudden such blatant rudeness? Why are the names of the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia given in the same context of their"salvation"? Perhaps, Moscow is losing (or believes to lose) leverage over Baku and Yerevan, and has to resort to the help of the knight of political hooliganism?!

On the one hand, this looks improbable especially as Pashinyan offers to deploy Russian border guards' fortified points along the entire length of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, that is, to transfer border protection to Russia, actually destroying the remnants of statehood, agreeing to demarcate and delimit the border, making concessions over the occupied enclaves and the Nagorno-Karabakh issue.

However, on the other hand, Pashinyan increasingly insists on his readiness for substantive negotiations where Moscow apparently sees no its dominant influence.

It has to be noted that Armenian political analysts have already noticed that Pashinyan's peaceful rhetoric runs counter to the statements of Defense Minister Arshak Karapetyan who several times, including at a meeting with Shoigu, declared a military solution to the border crisis with Azerbaijan. They believe that the position of the Armenian Prime Minister is perceived by the Azerbaijani side as a sign of weakness, and the hope that such an ostentatious democracy can change the behavior and opinion of the world community is illusory.

Also, Pashinyan emphasizes that Armenia is waiting for proposals to resume peace talks with Azerbaijan and is not minded to occupy foreign territories or start aggressive actions. Armenia welcomes the statement of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs and is ready to return to the peace negotiation process both at a high and at the highest level. In this case, however, Russia has R. Kocharyan who declared that nothing would be signed behind the back of the National Assembly.

But let's return to Azerbaijan. For the first time, the Russian Defense Ministry issued a statement that actually confirmed the fact of Azerbaijan's violation of the ceasefire regime in Karabakh. Undoubtedly, such a demarche is connected with the preliminary (also the first) accusation of the Russian peacekeepers of patronizing the Armenians, supporting the legitimacy of the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army and creating conditions under which the Armenians managed to maintain their military presence in Karabakh. Did the local separatists start talking about the need to strengthen the contingent of peacekeepers with the help of Moscow?! It is no coincidence that Baku's official claims were voiced on the very day when Russian Defense Minister Shoigu, calling Armenia "Russia's key partner in Transcaucasia," announced the start of deliveries of a new batch of modern weapons to this country. It is no mere coincidence that the statement of the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry laid an emphasis on the fact that the Russian contingent is temporarily stationed in Karabakh.

According to the press service of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, on August 11, the Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran was invited to the Foreign Ministry where a note of protest was handed to him over the fact that recently various Iranian cars  belonging to Iran "constantly enter and leave the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan without the permission of official Baku."

Thus, we see that the strengthening of Azerbaijan's political subjectivity is gaining strategic importance.

As viewed by Russian political analyst Andrey Areshev, Azerbaijan is seeking in every possible way to level and discredit the presence of Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno Karabakh, simultaneously conducting an information operation to accuse Yerevan of transferring armed forces to Nagorno Karabakh, and the peacekeepers of inaction. Baku's goal, according to this version, is to create certain tensions in Nagorno Karabakh whose de-escalation in terms of the self-removal of official Yerevan, formally or informally should be carried out exclusively between Moscow and Baku. By exerting pressure on Moscow and Yerevan, Baku is bringing the demarcation of borders closer to thus pave the way for signing "a peace treaty that would involve the recognition of the former Soviet borders, but in the most convenient configuration for Baku. And I must say that the Azerbaijanis are working quite consistently in this logic, "A. Areshev sums up. If this is true, we should only welcome such purposefulness somewhat disputing the conclusion that " the Armenian leadership is going with the flow and, being deprived of foreign policy subjectivity, agrees with everything offered to it." On the contrary, Armenia's attempts to drive a wedge between Baku and Moscow, upset Azerbaijan's strategic relations with Georgia, and crush the Azerbaijani-Turkish-Georgian partnership are quite obvious:

"The defeat of the Armenians in the Karabakh war led to the strengthening of the Turkic axis that originates in Adjaria due to the Turkish economic expansion, and continues in the Azerbaijani-populated province of Kvemo-Kartli whose demographic status cannot but worry Georgian patriots. The only wedge between them remains to be the Armenian-populated Javakheti whose residents are generally quite loyal to Tbilisi."

The Armenian press regularly discusses the topic of the imminent recognition of Northern Cyprus by Azerbaijan, so a decision of the Greek Ambassador to visit Shusha is explained by some diplomatic tricks while the refusal of Georgia and Armenia from the six-party partnership format proposed by Erdogan ("Caucasian Platform") is considered as establishing a secret strategic cooperation between the two "Christian" countries of the South Caucasus against the Turkic stranglehold.

For obvious reasons, a special "attention" is paid to the trilateral format of cooperation between Baku, Ankara and Islamabad with a very specific goal to oppose it to India. It is enough to get acquainted with the masterpiece of such analysis:

"As a member of the Coordination Group of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation on the Kashmir conflict, Azerbaijan acts from the positions of Pakistan and allows itself to openly hostile actions against India. During the days of the Karabakh war, the Indian leadership succeeded to make sure that the alliance of Pakistan, Turkey and Azerbaijan threatens their interests as well."

Beyond any doubt, all the identified issues of Azerbaijan's relations really exist although not in such an exaggerated form. Thus, at the end of May, the Indian Foreign Ministry issued a statement condemning Azerbaijan's aggression in Syunik and Gegharkunik, calling on Baku to immediately withdraw its troops from the territory of Armenia. And we should be grateful for the annoying reminders to solve all problems in the context of political subjectivity.

In this respect, President Aliyev's interview with CNN Turk is noteworthy which is completely built in line with the political sovereignty and subjectivity with an emphasis on Azerbaijan's ability to independently resolve issues, respond to the challenges and risks of our time.

Since Azerbaijan is embarking on the path of political subjectivity, this should, first of all, affect the state's attitude to its former compatriots who have been scattered around the world by the will of fate for centuries. Aid to them is the surest way of strengthening the positive image of the country. Today, a 16.000-strong community of ethnic Azeri Turks (Afshari) in the city of Herat in Afghanistan who are seeking asylum in Azerbaijan until the situation in their host country stabilizes, needs this assistance. What will Azerbaijan with its political subjectivity respond this challenge???