Azerbaijan can sign treaty on non-application of force only with Armenia and only after Armenia withdraws its troops from the occupied Nagorno Karabakh

Commenting on the said announcement, Azerbaijani political reviewer Vuqar Seidov said:

Nagorno Karabakh is not a subject of international law or a recognized unit of the world society for Azerbaijan to have any business with it. There are thousands of such self-declared states throughout the world. There are hundreds of "kingdoms" of local tribes only in African savanna and such "state forming processes" occur in the jungles of Amazon so rapidly that you are even unable to catch up with them. Despite the whole children's games "build a state", they are a part of a real state, including Brazil, Kongo, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and others. By its status Nagorno Karabakh does not differ from such "kingdoms". For this reason, Azerbaijan can not sign any treaties, especially "international" ones and especially with the powers, representing only one of the two ethnic communities of the oblast. The signing of an "international" treaty with powers of the region, which is a legal part of Azerbaijan, is a nonsense. Moreover, Armenia should realize that Nagorno Karabakh is not only Armenians and the status quo was gained not after the ethnic cleansing in the former Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast but before it.

Azerbaijan can sign a treaty (and will sign it with pleasure) on non-application of force only with Armenia and only after Armenia withdraws its troops from the occupied regions of Azerbaijan, including Nagorno Karabakh, dismisses of all illegal military formations in the oblast, demilitarizes it and provides for return of Azerbaijani refugees there. After it, Baku and Yerevan may sign the legally binding document on non-application of force and mutual respect of sovereignty of the two countries.

Moreover, if Baku and Yerevan sign the treaty today in the current conditions it will mean the direct way to further freezing of the conflict, which Armenia seems to be dreaming of, while Azerbaijan is interested in the soonest resolution of the conflict, not its freezing. It is unclear what Armenian politicians and political scientists rely on while sounding such unwise pseudo-pacifistic proposals! Does Armenia really suppose that Azerbaijan does not understand anything and counts that Baku will sign such a document, thus restricting its actions until the goodwill withdrawal of Armenian armed forces from all the occupied territories including Nagorno Karabakh? If this occurs, the negotiations will last forever and Karabakh Azerbaijanis will never return to their lands, while Armenian dram will circulate in Nagorno Karabakh for long. Azerbaijan will not undertake such a step and in this sense armed force can be justified.

The recent proposal of Melik Shahnazaryan is the same nonsense as, for example, Argentine's proposal to sign a treaty on non-application of force with the United States immediately after it occupied the Folkland islands. The armed forces of Her Majesty have become a tool of the successful conduction of operation for forcing an aggressor to peace and releasing the occupied lands. The Russian armed forces have become a decisive tool for conduction of an operation for the restoration of the constitutional order in Chechnya. Therefore, Armenia should realize that it order not to make the gun shoot it should release the occupied lands and content itself with autonomy, unless it is offered. Later they can not obtain even this and the fate of Karabakh Armenians may be equal to the fate of Armenian Azerbaijanis. Therefore, it is not too late for Armenia to change its mind.

/Regnum/