Why does Armenia put the cart before the horse?

Baku/08.09.21/Turan: Recently, the Armenian media were full of articles about the plans of Nikol Pashinyan's government to sign a peace agreement with Azerbaijan under the auspices of Moscow. Apparently, this topic was the main topic of the visits of the Prime Minister of Armenia, and then the new Minister of Foreign Affairs to Moscow. The “Past” newspaper citing its own sources, reported that the government and the Foreign Ministry are actively preparing  signing a peace agreement. Presumably, preliminary discussions on the draft document will begin in October.

Last Friday, Secretary of the Security Council of Armenia Armen Grigoryan stated that Armenia is waiting for Azerbaijan's reaction to the proposal to start work on demarcation and delimitation. Is Armenia really ready for peace or is this just another political game of the puppeteer of Armenia, Russia?

Former Foreign Minister Tofig Zulfugarov answered these questions in the "Difficult Question" program.

According to the ex-minister, Armenia is not ready for peace. “It's just that for several months Azerbaijan put pressure on Armenia, as it openly sabotaged some points of the trilateral agreement signed on November 10. And all these statements by Armenia are aimed at making these points again the subject of negotiations.

The issue of demarcation and delimitation, says Zulfugarov, is not a political, but an exclusively technical process and should begin after the signing of a peace agreement. Obviously, the first point of the peace agreement should be the mutual recognition of borders and sovereignty. However, the Armenians declare their readiness to start the process of demarcation and delimitation, but they do not want to sign a peace agreement, which is the primary reason for demarcation and delimitation.

According to the diplomat, from the same series and the recent statement of Konstantin Zatulin, the first deputy chairman of the Committee on CIS Affairs, Eurasian Integration and Relations with Compatriots of the State Duma of Russia, head of the Institute of CIS Countries, who accused Baku that he  does not strive for a stable peace, but on the contrary, together with Turkey, seeks to exert the most serious military-political pressure on Armenia in order to force it to recognize any conditions that they put forward.

They want the points of the trilateral agreement, which do not suit them, to reintroduce the agenda and make them the subject of discussion," Zulfugarov said.

The expert recalled that the trilateral agreement provides for: withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from Karabakh; unblocking transport corridors in the region, respectively, giving them extraterritorial status. Armenians want to avoid this.

According to Zulfugarov, a reasonable question arises: If Armenia does not want to give the Zangezur corridor an extraterritorial status, then why should Azerbaijan give such a status to the Lachin corridor?

“This question is also addressed to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who will act as a mediator and guarantor of the fulfillment of the terms of the trilateral agreement,” the diplomat said. –0—