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Rena Murshud

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In November 2020, after liberating its sovereign territory, Azerbaijan first expressed its desire to sign a peace treaty with Armenia. Nevertheless, Armenia, unable to come to reconcile with its humiliating defeat, initially opposed Azerbaijan's proposal. But Pashinyan, who later realized that pressure is useless, he and his cabinet then declared their recognition of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity.

Russia, which participated throughout these processes, also showed its support and its necessary participation in this matter. However, seeing that Russia was partially weakened after the war with Ukaina, Western forces also favored a peaceful attitude in the South Caucasus region. Even unlike Russia, the European countries that constantly follow the events through Armenia stated that "Baku and Yerevan will be able to sign a peace agreement in the coming weeks and months."

Not even a day later, Russia, or rather the director of the fourth department of the CIS countries of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Denis Gonchar, made a statement that the hasty signing of the peace process would lead to big conflicts in the South Caucasus region.

According to him, the agreement should not be signed quickly, but in a balanced way, as a result of mutually acceptable decisions.

The diplomat also spoke about the importance of progress in agreeing on ways to unblock transport communications between Azerbaijan and Armenia, on the implementation of concrete steps to restore and organize railway communication along the Yeraskh (Arazdayan) - Julfa - Mehri - Horadiz route.

"The fact is that Russia will try to do everything to leave its troops on the territory of Azerbaijan under the pretext of "peacekeeping". Russia is an imperialist regime and will maintain its influence in Azerbaijan in any way. I am sure that the leadership of Azerbaijan understands this very well and sees what Russia's strategy is. Therefore, the only correct way out, in line with the national interests of Azerbaijan, is to restore full sovereignty and control over the entire territory of the state as soon as possible and, for this, achieve the speedy withdrawal of Russian troops from the territory of Azerbaijan."

A Ukrainian political analyst, the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Oleksandr Oleksandrovich Merezhko, told AZERNEWS, while making a comment on the issue. He added that Russia will look for any excuse to stay and continue to try to influence the situation in Garabagh.

Then the expert told about unblocking transport communications between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and called this step in the right direction. "That is, we are talking about the normalization of relations between the two states. But this must be done in such a way that the sovereignty and national interests of Azerbaijan do not suffer. So that this unblocking does not become a tool for preserving any elements of the occupation of Azerbaijan's territory," Merezhko said.

Further, the Ukrainian expert, speaking about the actions of Armenia, noted that Armenia should follow its national interests, and not the interests of Russia. And at the same time, it must act in a way that does not violate international law.

"In my opinion, the true national interests of Armenia are to completely get rid of Russian influence, not to allow themselves to be used as an instrument of Russian imperialist policy, and to restore normal, civilized relations with Azerbaijan and Turkiye based on the observance of the norms and principles of international law. If Armenia manages to build peaceful and mutually beneficial relations with Azerbaijan, then it has a future," the Ukrainian expert underlined.

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