Unblocking of transport communication links ‘one among Azerbaijan’s numerous goals’ – Karen Bekaryan

The lightning speed with which Azerbaijan is trying to unblock its transport communication links is aimed at resolving one vital issue dominating that country’s agenda: building a road corridor with the western regions of Nakhicevan to ensure a connection between the two countries, political analyst Karen Bekaryan said on ArmNews TV Channel on Monday.

Commenting on the activities of the trilateral commission created on the level of the Armenian, Azerbaijani and Russian deputy prime ministers, he ruled out any chances of considering the issue in the context of confidence-building measures (citing  the unresolved humanitarian problems and Azerbaijan’s continuing hostile rhetoric.

“Isn’t it natural that the first confidence-building measure should be the absence of prisoners of war in the post-war period? But Armenia is not pushing ahead with its agenda; Armenia, in the current he circumstances, is serving the agenda of Azerbaijan,” he said during the analytical broadcast Between the Lines.

Bekaryan said he also sees that Azerbaijan is pushing forward preconditions in an attempt to attain a specific outcome on which the Armenian authorities keep silent. Meantime, he emphasized that the unblocking of communication links is just one among the numerous goals set by the Azerbaijani authorities.

“Given that the authorities do not have any real dialogue on these extremely important problems and issues, one tries to rely on factual situations to grasp, and gain real knowledge of, the issues or objectives being pursued by Azerbaijan,” he said, questioning also the credibility of the Nagorno-Karabakh president.

The analyst referred to a range of statements made by Arayik Harutyunyan in the pre-war period, particularly the remarks on the “total defense” of the airspace above capital Stepanakert, the possibility of coercing the adversary into specific scenarios and the statement downgrading the importance of Nagorno-Karabakh’s status. In his words, the kind of language testifies to an “utter ignorance of the situation”.

“Similar to the pre-war period that saw no risk assessment process before any speech – and whose consequences we are deriving today – we see nothing of the kind today either,” he added.