The playing field is set but where is Azerbaijan?

By Fərid Həsənli

I really don’t know where to begin!! Yesterday Turkey and Armenia signed the agreement about normalisation of relations and opening of borders and though there are many issues involved in this, a key element until this fateful moment, was the role of the Karabakh conflict. At the heart of the matter lay  a promise by our ‘brothers’, that Turkey will not pursue normalization of relations with Armenia until a solid and meaningful progress towards a settlement was set up between president Aliev and his Armenian counterpart. When the latter failed to emerge in recent days Turkey’s government, despite it’s now laughable statements of unity on the issue, gave in to external pressure and signed the agreement, effectively abandoning Azerbaijan.

There are two distinct views that Erdogan’s government must have evaluated prior to the decision. One is that Azerbaijan is a key strategic, political and economical partner and that we have deep historic and cultural ties, thus acting against its interests will be ‘unbrotherly’. This view has been repeated on several occasions by Turkey’s Prime Minister. The other is that Turkey has too many challenges of its own and can not act sentimentally when it comes to her interests, which primarily rest on pleasing pro-Armenian President Obama. Protagonists of the deal point out a key benefit to Azerbaijan, primarily that the forthcoming ratification of the agreement by Turkish parliament will be based in part on Armenian agreement to withdraw troops from 5 occupied regions in Azerbaijan, thus kick-starting proposed peace deal.  In other words this would allow Turkey to become a direct player in Karabakh conflict bypassing Russia, OSCE and everyone else for that matter. Though such optimistic projections play a heart-warming note in the minds of president Aliev’s faithful (in whose eyes he can do no wrong!) the reality dictates a different state of play. First there is no overt indication that Turkish parliament is planning anything of such kind, second over the last several months Azeri government made very little effort in presenting our case in Turkey and finally if the agreement is already signed and discussions have finished why they should even bother?

So the playing field is set! Azerbaijan, isolated, abandoned by allies, surrounded by increasingly hungry neighbours eyeing its oil wealth, is staring into an abyss reminiscent of Serbia’s fate. But there is hope and it has an unlikely name – Ilham Aliev. The ball is in his court, his hand is next!! It is up to him to stop the slow and inevitable carve up of our country! Justice has to prevail and whether the path will be one of peace or war, one thing is certain – Armenia must not get away with its crimes through political manoeuvrings backed by its multimillion propaganda campaigns.