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Qabil Ashirov

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Unfortunately, European countries and politicians are moving away from the principles that European values are constructed on. Day by day Europe loses its reputation due to the double standards demonstrated by the European politicians. It is impossible to understand what principles European politicians attach importance in approaching issues because they change the principles every time. In some cases they support human rights, but in other cases they turn a blind eye to certain situation. For example, 30 years ago when Armenians expelled 750,000 Azerbaijanis from Garabagh and adjacent districts the European politicians remained silent, they never expressed their concerns about the fate of Azerbaijani IDPs. However, when Azerbaijan restored its internationally recognized territorial integrity the same politicians immediately started speaking about human rights and expressed their concerns about the fate of Armenians. However, at the time when the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan was yet violated and 20 percent of the country was invaded by Armenia, the EU never sent a mission, but after the 44-day war, they appeared on the Armenian border. Besides, the EU Mission in Armenia makes biased statements in favor of Armenia and they make these statements so unprofessionally that their impartiality immediately becomes remarkable.

In a comment to Azernews on the double standards demonstrated by European politicians, Farid Shafiyev, the Azerbaijani political analyst, Chairman of the Baku based Center of Analysis of International Relations and Adjunct Lecturer at ADA University, noted that the EU was indifferent towards the appeals of Azerbaijan. He does not rule out that the EU Mission serves Armenian interests.

“Overall we should start by saying that the EU completely disregarded numerous appeals of Azerbaijan during 30 years of occupation. So, now the occupation has ended and Azerbaijan established control of its internationally recognized borders. Currently, in the post-occupation development period, the EU rushed to Armenia to establish the mission.

I believe that this mission serves the Armenian purpose and the protection of Armenia,” Shafiyev noted.

The pundit pointed out that the EU tries to portray the image as if the union concerns the stability in the region. However, he noted that if they had been concerned about the peace, they would have interfered previously.

“If the EU is really concerned about the security of the conventional Azerbaijani-Armenian borders, they should have interfered many years ago. However, we have not seen it. Brussels has generally approached the issue indifferently and now it is acting probably under the pressure of France and some other countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and maybe some Scandinavian countries. So, we clearly see that the European mission in Armenia is not unbiased. As we saw that the EU Mission in Armenia issued a tweet on August 15, and after a few hours they deleted the tweet under the pressure of some European countries including France. After this incident we cannot definitely believe the impartiality of the EU Mission in Armenia,” the Chairman stressed.

He noted that some European countries encourage narrow Armenian nationalistic interests that are based on irredentism. He underlined that such kind of policy will hinder the lasting peace in the region.

“Why did we witness such development? Because few countries led by France decided to act in the region, not for the sake of peace and security, but for promoting the narrow nationalistic interest of Armenia, and as is known the Armenian interest is comprised of the irredentist claims toward Azerbaijan. This situation is quite unfortunate and the action of certain European countries and overall the EU Mission won't bring lasting peace to the region,” Farid Shafiyev added.

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Qabil Ashirov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @g_Ashirov

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