Turkey and Azerbaijan seek to pressure Armenia into making concessions over several important issues, including the status of Artsakh and Armenia’s borders, as well as to make the country come to terms with the fact that Azerbaijani troops are stationed on Armenian territory, expert on Turkey Ruben Safrastyan told a news conference on Friday.
He said the fresh Azerbaijani provocations on the border aim to step up the pressure on Armenia and to “extort concessions” from the country.
Commenting on acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s proposal to deploy CSTO observers along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, Safrastyan underlined this is exactly the case when the CSTO should seriously consider the proposal.
“If this time as well the CSTO fails to carry out its key functions, it will seriously threaten the future of the organization,” Safrastyan said.
He lauded the U.S. House passage of the Pallone Amendment restricting U.S. military assistance to Azerbaijan as an “important and expected event”, highlighting the efforts made by Diaspora Armenians towards its adoption on Wednesday.
“It is also a message addressed to the executive branch to reconsider its position on dictatorial Azerbaijan,” he said.
However, Safrastyan noted, the White House does not often respond to the messages of the Congress, since it has its own interests. He pointed to the Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline starting in Azerbaijan, which is important for the US and the West.
Safrastyan assesses positively the fact that the United States, France and Russia believe the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs should continue and the issue of Artsakh’s status has not yet been resolved.
“This is an approach shared by Armenia and which would lead to a fair settlement to the Artsakh issue,” Safrastyan said.
The expert stressed the need for diplomatic work in specific directions over the status of Artsakh, the peaceful de-occupation of the Artsakh territories and the expansion of the circle of friendly states that have an objective idea of what is happening in the region. Serious efforts must be made in the region, including in connection with relations with Iran, he said.
Highlighting the role of Russia as Armenia’s strategic ally, he at the same time stressed the need for a values-based foreign policy.
“This is a new direction in the theory of international relations. For millennia, our people have created values that are part of modern civilization, we should use it in foreign policy. To put it simply, we should pursue a foreign policy that will be recognizable for the world to differ from other states and not to be just an ordinary, small and weak state in such a complex region,” Safrastyan said.
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