ArmInfo.How Ilham Aliyev plans to deport Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, why Turkey supports him and is not afraid to spoil relations with Russia, what mistake Nikol Pashinyan makes and how the West wants to oust Russia from the Caucasus, Pravda.Ru was told by First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee for CIS Affairs, Eurasian Integration and Relations with Compatriots; Head of the Institute of CIS Countries Konstantin Zatulin.
So, when asked to express a position on the situation around Nagorno-Karabakh against the backdrop of increasingly disturbing reports from there, Zatulin noted that Pashinyan's government from time to time states: "We insist that guarantees be given to the population of Nagorno-Karabakh." But at the same time, they say that the process should not go between Baku and Yerevan, but between Baku and Stepanakert (the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh).
"How the process is going is clear from the position of Azerbaijan, which does not recognize the leadership of Nagorno-Karabakh at all, is going to abolish even the "Nagorno-Karabakh" geographical placename, and President Aliyev has stated several times: the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh can take Azerbaijani citizenship, but if they do not want to be citizens Azerbaijan (and they really do not want to after everything that happened), then they should leave from there.
To demand from people who live for generations, centuries in this territory, as evidenced by historical facts, ancient monuments, temples, etc., that they leave this territory on the basis that they do not want to become citizens of Azerbaijan, is in disguised form of repetition of the deportation and genocide of the Armenian people in the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the 20th century. Azerbaijan is pushing the Armenians out of Nagorno-Karabakh so that it gets this territory without a population," the Russian politician believes.
At the same time, he stated that Azerbaijan established a checkpoint in the Kashatagh (Lachin) corridor so that it would be impossible to provide military assistance to the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh if Azerbaijani troops start fighting with them.
At the same time, he assures that Azerbaijan is interested in solving this problem as soon as possible, that is, to eliminate Nagorno-Karabakh as a concept, even in its geographical form.
"All this taken together is a grave accusation against the current government of Armenia, which is not only unable to protect the interests of Armenians, but it also leads to the gradual dismantling of Russian- Armenian allied relations. Pashinyan publicly stated that Armenia is not Russia's ally in the conflict We do not expect help from Armenia, we can handle it ourselves, but such statements create a certain background, despite the fact that there is a Russian base in Armenia itself, so that Armenia is calm in relation to its neighbors.
Armenia's neighbors are Turkey, which does not recognize the Armenian genocide that it committed at the beginning of the 20th century, and which unconditionally supports Azerbaijan when it comes to its claims against Armenia. This situation makes us worry about the fate of people, especially since our ancestors in Russia took responsibility for the fate of the Christian peoples in the Caucasus: Armenians and Georgians," Zatulin recalled.
And although history then developed in different ways, the politician continued, Russia fulfilled its task. At the same time, he considers it unnatural that today the Armenian authorities dream that Russia will leave the Caucasus forever, and cherish the hope that someone else will help them.
"When there was a Civil War in the Russian Empire, they also expected the West to help, but no one helped. And the Bolsheviks preserved both the Armenians and the Armenian statehood - in the form of the Armenian SSR.
Now the difficulty of our situation is that we do not want to aggravate relations with Turkey, and Turkey takes advantage of this, without embarrassment. They decided that the risks of complicating relations with Russia, with which there are many economic ties, mean less than a demonstration of loyalty to NATO, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, which is increasing its demands.
Here the point is not in Armenia and Azerbaijan, but in the fact that the West is trying to oust Russia from the Caucasus, where historically it has always been present," the MP concluded