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Abbas Ganbay

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Tensions are palpable around the world, where a Western coalition of countries continues to exert pressure on the more vulnerable places in the global world order. Armenian-Azerbaijani relations continue to be subject to criticism and pressure from third countries. The West, seeking to take control of most aspects of humanity's life activities, purely to build influence and economic supremacy, moves from one conflict to another.

Given that, the South Caucasus has always been under the close attention of the West because of the difficult accessibility of this region, its rich resources, fertile lands, and most importantly the economic way of communication. Once under the name of fighting terrorism, the USA invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, and placed its military bases and forces in many countries to fight against "terror".

Today there is another coalition of forces of countries under the European Union, which is similar to the U.S. in the deployment of its forces, but under a different slogan "Observer Mission".

After the end of the Second Garabagh War, as well as anti-terrorist measures, Azerbaijan resolutely undertook to establish peace in the South Caucasus.

If there were no EU "observer missions" during the First and Second Garabagh Wars and they were not as necessary as it is now, why should the EU establish them in Armenia and in particular near the border with Azerbaijan? The EU foreign ministers have decided to increase the number of their EU civilian mission in Armenia from 138 to 209 people. This was announced by Josep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, at a press conference following the meeting of the EU foreign ministers. He called this increase in the number of missions "important".

What could increase the size of the mission mean? Why is that "important"? The West also used to call helping Ukraine in its war with Russia "important", and we all know what that ultimately led to. Now their "importance" is meaningless as all the "importance" will not be delivered to Ukraine. Huge amounts of investment and aid from EU countries into Ukraine are being stopped due to the huge loss of weapons stocks and human power. The population of Ukraine has considerably decreased, and women are already being considered for military service. Armenia also tried to send women to the war with Azerbaijan and even prepared detachments of nine-year-old children with AK 47s.

Having held Ukraine hostage for a long time, the West has managed to produce a huge amount of weapons to "support" Ukraine. The US also supplied Ukraine with weapons. Based on the experience of Ukraine, we can predict what kind of assistance the West will give to Armenia.

Observer missions from the EU and other organisations have already carried out their work in Armenia, and they have not recorded anything. So maybe it is the West's patronage of Armenia, which was in "brotherly" relations with Russia? We also know that the US authorities have invested money in the development of mass media in Armenia, therefore, the anti-Azerbaijani propaganda coming from these media outlets.

A new dose of propaganda referred to the data of Fightrade24 service, according to which allegedly during the last week the military transport aircraft Il-76 of the Azerbaijani Defence Ministry 4K-78129 made flights to Serbia, Bulgaria, and Kazakhstan. Armenian media believe that the purpose of the flights is a hidden arms build-up by Baku, where they (Armenians) remind that Kazakhstan is Armenia's CSTO ally. Then why does CSTO member Armenia buy weapons from the same France, which is a NATO member? And if Pashinyan repeatedly spoke about his intention to conclude a peace treaty with Azerbaijan, why the claims have not been realized? Maybe the Western hands obstruct it.

Armenia's close rapprochement with the West may seem favorable in terms of economy and military, but it will not be able to sit on to two chairs, Russia will continue to pressure Yerevan in case of Armenia's rapprochement with the West at every step, and use it to circumvent EU sanctions.

"The West often helps its enemies while abandoning its allies. Such double standards are being applied against Azerbaijan as well."

This was said by Dr Mordechai Kedar, Israel's best-known expert on the Arab world, and Iran, a former Lieutenant Colonel in the Intelligence Corps of the Israel Defence Forces, in a tatya published in the Jerusalem Post.

The article, entitled "The West's double standards", notes that Azerbaijan and Armenia recently took a major step towards signing a peace agreement: The parties agreed to build confidence and mutually release prisoners. However, despite this important achievement, many in the West continue to blame Baku, which is a staunch ally of both the US and Israel.

It has been noted that while Azerbaijan is close to achieving peace with Armenia, 60 U.S. Senators have pressured President Biden to provide security assistance to Yerevan. Moreover, some time ago the Senate even passed a resolution calling on the US to stop military aid to Azerbaijan.

The Israeli professor emphasised that all this poses the question: "If Washington wants to establish peace between Baku and Yerevan, shouldn't it invest in peace initiatives in both countries, rather than cut off aid to the other one when it wants to support one? Doesn't such behaviour contradict the prospects for peace between both countries?"

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Abbas Ganbay is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @Noend33

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