In his speech at the inauguration ceremony, the President of Azerbaijan said that the second Karabakh war could not have happened if Armenia, its leadership and the forces standing behind it respected international law and the four resolutions of the UN Security Council. Referring to the four resolutions of the UN Security Council, the President of Azerbaijan is probably trying to create a “legal basis” for the forty-four-day war. This proves that legitimizing the consequences of the war is still on the agenda of Baku’s foreign policy.
A week before the inauguration speech, Aliyev publicly admitted that from the moment he assumed the office of president for the first time, he “understood that all proposals solve tactical problems”, referring to the plans presented by the mediators in the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement negotiations. He said that he aimed to “solve the issue once and for all, there should not be a den of separatism in the territory of Azerbaijan”. Apparently, he understood that this wording would not find international acceptance and again referred to the four resolutions of the UN Security Council.
As they say, his portrait should be returned. The four resolutions of the UN Security Council recognize the sovereignty and territorial integrity not only of Azerbaijan, but also of all the countries of the region, the inviolability of the borders and reject territorial acquisitions by force. Moreover, there is no demand for the withdrawal of armed formations from Nagorno Karabakh in those resolutions. The UN Security Council referred to Armenia only once, urging it to exercise influence over Nagorno-Karabakh so that the requirements of the resolution are met.
The context of Aliyev’s statement is that Azerbaijan “fulfilled the requirements of the four resolutions of the UN Security Council, had a legitimate mandate to carry out military operations.” First of all, it is not like that at all, otherwise the UN Security Council would have established a norm of use of force against NK military formations. Secondly, Aliyev himself violated the definition of “the Nagorno-Karabakh region of the Republic of Azerbaijan” in the resolutions, canceled the administrative-territorial and status entity of Nagorno-Karabakh, and ultimately carried out ethnic cleansing so that “separatism in the territory of Azerbaijan will never raise its head again”.
The President of Azerbaijan considers the return of the Armenian population to Nagorno-Karabakh as “territorial aspiration of Armenia”. The task of Stepanakert is to reaffirm its status as the right holder, based on the four resolutions of the UN Security Council cited by Aliyev himself, which recognize the rights of the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh. It is a difficult question, but that path must be started. Aliyev gave the opportunity and it should be used.
#priority #reestablishing #subject #opportunity #Aliyev