Konstantin Zatulin: Azerbaijan is interested in soonest elimination  of concept of Nagorno-Karabakh, even in its geographical form

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