Bad - Good

The Armenians once again played the "bad - good" card before the Moscow meeting of the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia, with the mediation of the head of the Russian Federation . Prime Minister Pashinyan made another statement on the recognition of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, including the Armenian-populated Territory of Karabakh (APTK), as an integral part of it, and his opponents from the APTK stated the exact opposite, assuming full independence from Azerbaijan.

The question is not which side is good and which is bad. It all depends on what angle you look at the situation. But in any case, such an identification takes place for both Armenians and Azerbaijanis.

In fact, Armenia, which generated an open Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, managed, and directed it, maintains an occupation army in the APTK, played a game throughout the 35-year-old Karabakh conflict, presenting everything that is happening as the will of the Armenians of the APTK, to whose will the global will of the world Armenians is subordinated.

It was a very effective model of protecting the interests of the Armenians in the negotiation process for the settlement of the Karabakh conflict throughout its entire course, and was used more than once after the 44-day war. Therefore, the emergence of intra-Armenian polemics on the eve of negotiating summits can be called a programmed process.

Before the Moscow meeting, the "bad-good" model played more colorfully, and in the speech of Prime Minister Pashinyan and his opponents from the Karabakh clan, which he defeated in 2018. And this is not accidental, since historically the keys to the conflict are stably stored in the trunk of the Kremlin chambers. The presence of the Russian army in Karabakh serves as an additional guarantee of control over the region, as it was at the beginning of the 19th century, when the presence of the Russian army in the Karabakh Khanate as a guarantor of maintaining the status quo of Ibrahim Khan's power later turned into the dismemberment of Karabakh and the formation of a special APTK, which received the name of Nagorno-Karabakh under Soviet rule.

The Armenians do not abandon their efforts to repeat the history of two hundred years ago, trying to draw Moscow into another of their adventurous wars with Azerbaijan. This is also understood in the Kremlin, where, in the conditions of international chaos, a strategy has developed to maintain its presence by maintaining the conflict.

After the ministerial meeting of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Russia in Moscow last week, the Kremlin gave a clear signal to Washington and Brussels that there is no alternative to the trilateral statements of the leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia of November 10, 2020. "The trilateral statements of our leaders contain, in fact, a roadmap for achieving sustainable solutions. We have analyzed the situation around the South Caucasus, and we believe that there is no alternative to the agreements of our leaders. Russia wants peace and stability in the region, Russian interests are directly tied here. The Russian Federation will do everything possible to ensure that the decisions concerning the stabilization of the situation are implemented, hoping that they will be respected by all other countries that are somehow interested in being present in this region," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

President Aliyev, as an experienced long-term player of all settlement formats, cannot fail to understand that any deviation and moderation by Russia can lead to complications in the negotiation process. He still has an advantage in the form of a policy of geopolitical equidistance over Pashinyan and his opponents, who elevated Armenia to the status of a strategic ally of Moscow within the framework of various Kremlin alliances, and at the same time raised the country to a higher allied level with the European Union. Two opposing foreign policy lines of Baku and Yerevan can be traced in the rhetoric of Azerbaijani and Armenian political circles. In the first case, a balanced pragmatic view of the situation, and in the second, a manifestation of loyalty and at the same time rejection of all the geopolitical centers of the negotiation process.

Moscow, as well as Washington and Brussels, see these contradictions as the cuisine of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, and therefore do not want to force the settlement process in order to prevent the weakening of their interests and positions that have been secured over the past 35 years.