Cause of Baku`s warnings and expected events in JulyCause of Baku`s warnings and expected events in July

Two top-level Azerbaijani leaders issued statements threatening Armenia on the same day. “If Armenia continues to drag out time on the issue of border delimitation, it will regret it,” President Ilham Aliyev said, speaking to the military in Kalbajar on June 26. “If the revanchist forces of Armenia raise their heads, they should know what awaits them,” he threatened.

"The desire for power of the Armenian revanchists is a step aimed at violating the Statement of November 10, 2020. If Armenia does not fulfill the terms of the agreement, no one can guarantee that it will not have more problems than before," said in an interview with REAL TV Head of the Department for Military Affairs of the Presidential Administration Maharram Aliyev.

In April and May 2022, representatives of Azerbaijan and Armenia met and negotiated on a wide range of issues, the main one being the demilitarization and demarcation of the common border. As a result of the negotiations, the parties made encouraging statements, but no agreed result was achieved. This happened against the backdrop of threats emanating from various figures in Yerevan and Khankendi, as I.Aliyev recalled on May 27, in Zangilan. Then he said that in Armenia there are "revanchist forces that encourage such dangerous behavior."

The Armenian Foreign Ministry spoke sharply in response, and then the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry explained that “only a correct assessment of the new realities and new opportunities (in Armenia - Ed.) that have developed in the region can lead to correct results.

But after May 27, threats against Azerbaijan continued in Yerevan and Khankendi. In the spirit of the early nineties, local separatists Samvel Balayan and Artak Beglaryan spoke in Karabakh. Both ruled out the return of the part of Karabakh controlled by Russian forces to Azerbaijan, urging international forces to enter the region and stay as long as possible. The Yerevan authorities did not oppose such statements; on the contrary, on June 3, Gazeta.ru published the news about negotiations between the separatists and Yerevan "on the recognition of the NKR." Beglaryan then said that Yerevan actually recognized the independence of the "NKR", since "horizontal ties are maintained between the republics on an equal footing."

The opinion of the Azerbaijani side about the Armenian intentions is confirmed by the conclusion of the Armenian expert Alexander Iskanderyan. In Yerevan, they openly talk about the hopes they have in the course of Russia's war in Ukraine.

“What is currently in the Karabakh process is a dead end, and it will continue.  It depends  on many parameters how far and how long it will last: from the restoration of the subjectivity of the Armenian statehood to the Ukrainian war. But it is difficult to imagine that this problem can be solved in the near future as a result of some kind of diplomatic activity. Director of the Caucasus Institute A. Iskandaryan stated this in an interview with the correspondent of Armenian News-NEWS.am.

It excludes the possibility of solving the Karabakh problem within the Azerbaijani state. “Based on the results of the 2020 war, it is clear that Azerbaijan is not ready to follow this path. How can a normal resident of Karabakh talk about the observance of their rights on the territory of Azerbaijan, if there are no Armenians left in the territories just occupied by Azerbaijan? They were either killed or expelled. There is still a provision in Azerbaijan according to which an ethnic Armenian cannot appear in Azerbaijan,” Iskandaryan said in an interview with news.am.

Repeatedly declaring his intention to open an era of peace in the region, in reality, Prime Minister N. Pashinyan is fulfilling the order of the Armenian opposition, which requires the country's leadership not to rush to sign documents with Azerbaijan, to wait for another geopolitical situation beneficial to Armenia. Both political forces in Armenia hope for the resumption of the activity of the OSCE Minsk Group, which supports the idea of ​​determining a certain status of "Nagorno-Karabakh". Although I.Aliyev stated that “the Minsk Group is dead”, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov  supported this position of Azerbaijan. In such a situation, official Azerbaijan could not but issue a warning about the possibility of retaliatory actions.

Farhad Mammadov from the Center for Studies of the South Caucasus - CSSC, commenting on S. Lavrov's last trip to Baku, regards what is happening  as the resumption of the mediators' efforts to achieve progress “precisely in the context of their own initiatives, excluding the initiatives of another mediator. Lavrov's voyage should also be understood in this context. Let's expect European activity in July, as the next summit of the leaders of the EU, Azerbaijan and Armenia is scheduled for late July - early August. The preparations were to be made by Special Representative Claar, whose clumsy announcement put his activities on hold. There is an element of lack of consistency, which once again threatens to disrupt the adoption of fundamental decisions. Armenian maneuvers and throwing create conditions for a higher involvement of mediators in the normalization process, which Baku does not want. It looks like the Armenian leadership’s sense of subjectivity has completely atrophied.”

The MP Rasim Musabekov, called the  delay of the negotiations by the Armenian side a non-stop seances in order to summon the spirits of the deceased co-chairmanship of the OSCE Minsk Group.

“Armenians should hardly shy away from addressing the issues that are outlined by the tripartite statement of November 2020 and the talks in Brussels with the participation of EU Council President Charles Michel, pending the resuscitation of the Minsk Group. After all, hoping for the best, you can miss the real chances for restoring peace and cooperation in the region. This has already happened in history, for example, the "Wilson Arbitration Award" that remained on paper and cost the Armenians dearly. So is it worth repeating mistakes?” R. Musabekov concluded.

July is just a few days away. F.Mammadov noted that  a summit of the leaders of the EU, Azerbaijan and Armenia may take place in July - end of August. Baku and Yerevan put their available forces against each other in order to put pressure on their partner in negotiations in order to achieve an advantageous position. This means that next month we should expect new, perhaps more dramatic events on both the diplomatic and military fronts.