Politics

While conspiracy theories and nationalist pseudohistories are a common phenomenon in the postsocialist space, something peculiar has happened in Azerbaijan; the eccentric ultranationalists, whose ideas are popular among the regime-aligned elite and are explicitly sponsored by the state, have proven triumphant.

In the absence of political will to exert pressure on Baku to accept necessary preconditions for the security and fundamental rights of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians, any calls for their return will only serve to legitimize and whitewash the ethnic cleansing that Azerbaijan carried out.

With the collapse of Artsakh, will the EU further enable Baku’s irredentist agenda to seize Armenian territory as part of the opening of the “Zangezur Corridor” or will Brussels show the same initiative to sanction and deter Azerbaijan that it deployed in response to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine?

The collapse of Artsakh is the failure of preventive diplomacy, the end of the human-rights-based liberal world governance system and can embolden other autocratic states to use force against small entities claiming self-determination to subjugate or eliminate them in other parts of the world.

The question of whether Armenia should remain a member of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization or withdraw continues to be debated in Armenian political circles. Armine Margaryan explains and offers a new perspective.

Azerbaijan’s approach to the Nagorno-Karabakh issue is a perversion of the concept of territorial integrity. It makes a mockery of legalism and constitutionalism, hijacking the law and using it extra-legally to violate civil, civic and human rights.

If the international community fails to stop the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, it will serve as a dangerous precedent for the international order and members of the UN Security Council, including the mediators, will be deemed responsible for it.

After months of gradually deepening the blockade and experimenting with various methods of coercion to force Armenians out of Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan seems to have found a slow-paced but high-impact weapon – deliberate starvation.

If concrete measures, such as direct intervention, imposing sanctions on Aliyev's family, and targeting Aliyev's reputation, are not taken, international actors involved in the mediation process will ultimately share responsibility for the events unfolding in Artsakh.

On July 29, Azerbaijani border services kidnapped and detained an elderly man who was being transferred from Artsakh to Armenia by the ICRC for medical treatment. Baku may now target and detain every male in Nagorno-Karabakh, writes Sossi Tatikyan.