By Ilgar Mammadov, Founding Member of Republican Alternative (REAL) Party
Since the victory, public debate over foreign policy in Azerbaijan has largely been smothered. There is plenty of talk, but no real discussion.
We have forgotten that part of the reason we won was the decades long relatively open contest of ideas about foreign policy. The meanings we used, the emphases we chose and the answers we developed were sharpened by repeated argument – polished and hardened against differing views. While the war raged, the product of this robust public debate helped us present a unified, credible position to both domestic and international audiences and to rally support for our fighters’ rightful cause.
Today, however, it seems that only one person knows what should be done, how and when. Hence the setbacks in our foreign policy.
Last week, speaking at the UN General Assembly, President Ilham Aliyev said that the 10 November 2020 marked the capitulation of Armenia. He attributed Zangezur corridor to one of the Washington summit’s key outcomes.
Yet three days later, from the same UN podium, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan denied any connection between the notion of “Zangezur corridor” and the Washington agreements – even saying the phrase had never been in the Armenia-Azerbaijan negotiations or documents. He invited us to clarify what we meant by it.
Pashinyan repeated the same claim days later in Strasbourg, saying he did not understand what Azerbaijan was referring to.
So what is capitulation? Capitulation means the defeated side accepts all the conditions set by the victor – the conditions that come from the causes and the course of the war – without putting any terms back on the winner.
Thus, Pashinyan now insists there was no capitulation but rather equal-party negotiations. He first compelled Baku to drop the “Western Azerbaijan” rhetoric, and now he wants us to drop talk of the Zangezur corridor. What will satisfy him next? If we are obliged to always placate the capitulated side, then what is the capitulation?
Public debate on foreign policy must be reopened in our country, that is dissent should not be repressed. If not, then strategic and tactical regress of our diplomacy will continue, and even the modest expectations we had built based on our wartime victory about reviving strong economic and cultural ties in the peaceful regional political atmosphere will gradually evaporate.
