(MENAFN- AzerNews) By Orkhan Amashov
At a time in the recent past when disillusionment over the
protracted and seemingly futile negotiations with Armenia within
the OSCE Minsk Group format persisted disturbingly in Azerbaijan,
with Armenia showing no indication of fulfilling its obligations
under international law, and the international community ostensibly
maintaining its apathy, President Ilham Aliyev had already been
cogitating the exact contours of his last resort to end the illegal
occupation of his country's territories.
Aliyev's sense of timing
Prior to the Second Karabakh War of 2020, Azerbaijan had
repeatedly made it abundantly clear that, if the peace process with
Yerevan was fruitless, a military solution would be inevitable.
This fell on deaf ears, with the Armenian-skewed OSCE Minsk Group
Co-chair countries incorrigibly voicing the need to adhere to their
unworkable formula as the only way forward.
Unshakably confident of his own strategic sense of timing,
President Aliyev knew that the critical mass of circumstances
rendering a counter-attack operation both legitimate and successful
beyond doubt had already been established. Firstly, the
Yerevan-initiated interstate border clash in July 2020, which was
inscribed in the annals of history as the Tovuz events, coupled
with the Armenian government's earlier-declared“the new war for
new lands” doctrine, was clearly indicative of Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinyan's sheer obstinacy to move a millimetre towards striking a
peaceful resolution.
Secondly, by 2020, all the possibilities of recourse to legal
mechanisms had been exhausted, despite the four UN Security Council
resolutions of 1993 demanding the withdrawal of occupying Armenian
forces from Azerbaijani lands and many other documents adopted by
influential international bodies serving no practical purpose.
Thirdly, the Azerbaijani Army, through in-depth and large-scale
reforms, assisted by active cooperation from Turkiye, Israel and
Pakistan, had already bolstered its capabilities to the extent of
enabling it to easily conduct the liberation of Karabakh in a
technological conflict named 'the future of warfare'.
On 27 September 2020, the world woke up to a new war between
Azerbaijan and Armenia and began to realise that the simmering
conflict's destiny was about to change. Baku's counter-offensive
measures were robust and unflinching. During the course of the
following 44 days, the world at large did not just see Azerbaijan's
resilience and unity of purpose, but also its leader's acumen,
manifesting itself in his unsurpassed ability to lead his steadfast
nation throughout the war and communicate the realities and legal
basis of the conflict effectively, both to the nation and the world
at large.
Effective communication
Azerbaijan was just and right, but also needed to be seen as
such, since for the uninitiated, this could have been seen as a
territorial dispute wherein both sides could be regarded as equally
right or wrong whereas, for the ill-informed, the assumption may
have been that Baku was acting precipitately, with an exacerbated
sense of untimely urgency, leaving no scope for peaceful
routes.
In his numerous interviews during the war and thereafter,
President Aliyev faced journalists from across the world with
aplomb, dealing with questions of all sorts, some of which appeared
to emanate from ulterior motives and preconceived biases, others
from the lack of a grasp of the basics pertaining to the conflict,
with a few unfortunate reports being products of misguided
journalistic inquisitiveness, understandably aiming to adopt an
incredulous disposition for the sake of sensation and a desire to
satisfy preconceived notions.
It is with imperturbable composure, lucid clarity and absolute
belief in his own righteousness that Aliyev not just propounded the
legal, historic and political substance of the then-ongoing war,
but also dealt with every misbegotten accusation levied against
Azerbaijan. Never did he appear to have lost his calmness and
characteristic resilience whilst responding to repeatedly-made
inquiries about the phantom Syrian mercenaries allegedly fighting
on the side of Azerbaijan. Neither did he remotely seem troubled
when the questions about the Turkish F16 fighter jets left in
Azerbaijan reached unbearable frequency, despite Aliyev's clear
replies explaining their functionality as having no bearing on the
active military campaign and being relevant only as a deterrent
against a possible third party intervention.
Artful calibration of geopolitical actors
For justice to be served, it is vital that a nation which seeks
to reverse the consequences of a wrong does so in a fashion
rendering undue external factors as ineffective and a cumulative
import of foreign influences as plausible as possible. During the
war, Aliyev's sense of the world's mood was unmistakably clear. At
the time, the relations between Turkiye, Azerbaijan's first-rate
ally, and Russia, its neighbour with a huge influence over Armenia,
were of sufficiently fertile nature to render the geopolitical
theatre auspicious to Baku's maneuverability. This was also partly
due to President Aliyev's active diplomacy, aimed at achieving such
an equilibrium.
Iran was characteristically treacherous, perceived as being
capable of unwarranted perfidiousness. Aliyev knew this. He was
also certain that, under the circumstances, there were limits to
Tehran's pro-Armenian interventionist steps that would, in all
probability, stop short of a tangible form of succour in view of
the impracticality of espousing a losing side after reaching the
point of no return.
France, the overtly biased member of the now-dead OSCE Minsk
Group, was another nation in relation to which Baku must have made
a through study and established that President Emmanuel Macron's
leverage over the situation would be limited to vocal utterances
for Yerevan's cause to placate the Franco-Armenian diaspora. Aliyev
must have also thought of the nature and exigencies of the US
administration in charge, calculating the degree of its attempts
aimed at exerting influence on the theatre of confrontation.
The Second Karabakh War was not the preferred choice of
Azerbaijan, conversely being its last resort and an act of
inevitable necessity in the face of Armenia's unwillingness to act
reasonably, exacerbated by its new provocation leading to the
renewed hostilities. The same sense of military proportionality and
necessity guided both Baku's behaviour in the context of individual
warfare episodes and in terms of its calculations for conducting
the overall campaign itself within judicious limits.
Apogee and a new beginning
When asked during the war by journalists as to when Azerbaijan
would agree to end the confrontation, President Aliyev's answer was
that this would happen when Yerevan officially pledged to withdraw
from the occupied territories, providing a timetable. This was also
of reiterating import from the perspective of Baku's fundamental
rationale: the war was a counter-offensive measure, a last resort
and an act of peace-enforcement.
The circumstances pointed towards such a probability after the
historic liberation of Shusha, the occupation of which in 1992 had
been a source of constant vexation, preying heavily on the nation's
psyche, being seen as a sign of unbearable injustice and deeply
felt loss for which there was no remedy or even justification when
glanced upon from Baku's predicament existing at the defeat during
the First Karabakh War.
When, on 8 November 2020, Aliyev declared the news of the
liberation of Shusha, that was not only the irreversible vestige of
the Second Karabakh War proving the certainty of victory, but also
a turning point in our national story, exemplifying a gigantic
reversal of ingnominious injustice.
The glorious triumph was not an end in itself, but a bestowal of
a new license upon Azerbaijan, akin to rebirth. On the momentous
day, when Aliyev made the historic“Shusha, you are free” speech,
in those words were concentrated the whole gist of Azerbaijan's
past, present and future, for those lines exemplified not just what
had happened, but what would ensue.
Post-2020 Azerbaijan's self-confidence steers clear of
complacency and seeks the perpetuation of its triumph via incessant
growth, for stagnation is for those convinced of their whole
mission being fulfilled with no need for further consolidation. The
future has much in store for those taking nothing for granted,
seeing fresh challenges as an opportunity to scale new
pinnacles.
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