By Movsun Hajiyev (Head of Echo Baku) after a conversation with Azerbaijani political analyst Ilgar Velizade
This week marks five years since the 44-day war – the event that reshaped the entire geopolitical landscape of the South Caucasus. It was the moment Moscow’s gradual retreat from the region began. Whether that’s good or bad is a matter of perspective; personally, I don’t believe it’s possible to completely exclude outside powers from the Caucasus. Several competing centers of influence are always better than one. But that’s not the main point here.
And no, this is not another tribute to the “great victory” – there are already plenty of those. The more interesting question is why, five years later, there’s still no fully signed peace treaty between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
For the first two years after the war, Yerevan acted as if nothing had happened. “Karabakh is still up for discussion,” was the silent mantra. To borrow from comedian Garik Martirosyan, for an Armenian goalkeeper, it’s not enough to score a goal – you still have to prove it counts.
Only in September 2022, when Azerbaijani forces entered Armenia’s sovereign territory, did Nikol Pashinyan truly realize his country’s vulnerability. It was then, in Prague, that he first recognized Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity.
Before that, he had won elections under the slogan “unification for salvation.” Later, he clarified that yes, he recognized Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity – including Karabakh. Just days ago, he admitted that refusing to do so earlier had been a mistake.
According to Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov, Pashinyan once told President Ilham Aliyev in 2019, “If I do this, they’ll kill me. You don’t want me killed, do you?” Who exactly “they” were – foreign powers with a vested interest in keeping the conflict alive, or domestic hardliners – remains unspoken.
But now the situation is reversed: it’s Baku that’s not in a hurry. The reason is clear – Azerbaijan wants guarantees. Words alone, especially from Pashinyan, mean little. Over five years he has changed his positions as often as a pregnant woman changes cravings, as even Armenian commentators admit. His statements seem crafted with the assumption that no one will take them literally.
In 2019 he declared, “Artsakh is Armenia, period.” Later his government filed international lawsuits about the “rights of Karabakh Armenians.” Even after recognizing Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, Yerevan kept 10,000 troops stationed there and allocated half a billion dollars annually to fund separatists – openly, through the Armenian state budget up to 2023.
So what prevents him from reversing course again, perhaps in 2026, saying: “I was wrong; Artsakh is Armenia after all. Those Armenians were deported – they must return and determine their own status.” His political zigzags have happened over far shorter timeframes. On September 22, 2022, for instance, he said Armenia would have to make “painful concessions.” Hours later, facing street protests and without loyal riot police to protect him, he backtracked: “I was misunderstood.”
As Ilgar Velizade pointed out, all of Pashinyan’s shifts occurred while external powers were distracted – powers deeply invested in perpetuating the conflict. Moscow was preoccupied with Ukraine, Tehran was licking its wounds after the 12-day war and anticipating another, and Paris… well, few now see Europe as a serious center of power.
But the South Caucasus is too strategic to be left alone for long. Once those players recover, they’ll seek ways back in. And what’s the easiest entry point? Reviving the conflict. “What do you mean, the Armenians left Karabakh? That’s unfair! Let’s revisit this.” Predictably, Russian commentators have grown louder on this theme in recent months – a convenient distraction from their own military blunders elsewhere.
Pashinyan himself is an emotional, impressionable politician who changes course quickly. So which of his statements will he someday call a mistake — the ones from 2019, or from 2025?
That’s why Baku is moving cautiously, seeking to cement – to “concrete” – the postwar reality so that Yerevan has no physical capacity to act as anyone’s proxy again. Velizade suggests one possible tool could be the return of Azerbaijani refugees to Armenia, effectively creating Baku’s own “Karabakh lever” – a strategic vulnerability inside Armenia itself.
In short, Azerbaijan isn’t dragging its feet; it’s fortifying the peace. After five years of shifting rhetoric, fading foreign guardians, and the ghosts of conflicts past, Baku wants a treaty that can’t be undone the moment global attention drifts elsewhere.
Because in the Caucasus, peace is only real when it’s irreversible.
