Azerbaijan is driving itself into ecstasy by demanding that everyone unconditionally acknowledge not only the current state of affairs, but also forget what preceded it, said State Duma deputy and director of the CIS Institute Konstantin Zatulin, in a commentary for Svobodnaya Pressa, touching on the interview of presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky with the RT channel.
In an interview with RT, Medinsky said that if the Russian-Ukrainian conflict along the front line is stopped and peace is not agreed upon, “then this will be — you know, there was a disputed region between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Karabakh — this region will turn into a huge Karabakh.” After this, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry stated that Medinsky distorted the facts and recommended that he “refrain from damaging interstate relations by making such erroneous statements on issues beyond his authority.”
“Twice — in 2020 and 2023, Azerbaijan took military action, which ended with the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh coming completely under its control. And the consequence of this was the total exodus of the Armenian population from the lands they previously occupied.
Azerbaijan now presents the matter as if nothing happened in Karabakh before 2020. Meanwhile, a group of negotiators existed and operated, while Baku itself admitted that it was necessary to find a peaceful solution to the issue.
Ultimately, Azerbaijan disrupted these negotiations and preferred war, although the parties were close to resolving the matter amicably.
Baku wants to forget about the suffering of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh. Therefore, from the point of view of the essence of the issue, Medinsky had the right to say that the option in which military actions cease but a final settlement is not achieved, as happened in Karabakh in 1994, carries risks and can lead to the resumption of military actions.
As for Azerbaijan, it pounces on anyone who even simply mentions the name Nagorno-Karabakh. They are free to be amnesiacs in Baku and pretend that no one remembers anything,” Zatulin said.
“Baku said that they would grant Nagorno-Karabakh the broadest autonomy in the event of its return to Azerbaijan. They guaranteed an extraordinary and unprecedented degree of independence.
As a result, Nagorno-Karabakh now has no status, just as there is no Armenian population. 120 thousand people have left. Azerbaijan wants everyone to quickly forget that Armenians once lived in Nagorno-Karabakh. But they lived there much earlier than the Azerbaijanis appeared. Although later, of course, Azerbaijanis also lived there, making up about 25% of the population.
The discussion was about holding a referendum on the status of this territory, postponed for some time,” Zatulin noted.
