(MENAFN- AzerNews)
Qabil Ashirov Read more Armenia has been provoking Azerbaijan since the end of the
44-day War in 2020. With the sneaking and planting of landmines in
Azerbaijan's liberated territories, financing the separatist gang
in Khankendi, and transferring military equipment and personnel to
Garabagh, it has been able to keep tension high in its relationship
with Azerbaijan over the last three years. However, two successive
terror acts ended in the deaths of nine Azerbaijanis on September
19 changed everything, and Baku started the anti-terror
activities.
It should be noted that the processes have attracted the special
interest of foreign media representatives, think tanks and
political analysts. Experts from different countries, including
Turkiye, Britain, France and Pakistan, have shared their opinions
on the ongoing processes.
Speaking to Azernews political scientist Dr.
Imran Khalid pointed out that it appears, that terrorist activities
are connected with two factors. First, it has to be understood that
Pashinyan is trying to remain in power, and for this, he makes
populist speeches. As is known, the best way to stay in power is to
create problems and to keep the relations with Azerbaijan tense. Or
to what extent, he tries to provoke Azerbaijan in the Garabagh
economic region.
“The second factor is, that Russian influence on Armenia is
gradually decreasing and at the same time, the influence of the USA
and the West is gradually increasing. One can observe it from
recent visits by Western leaders to Armenia. Even very recently,
Armenian forces have held military exercises with the USA. So, all
these factors have encouraged Pashinyan to take risks, and some
kind of teasing activities in Garabagh. I guess, initially their
plan was to start some kind of terrorist activities to test the
potential response of Azerbaijan. If Azerbaijan had responded
softly, they would gradually increase these terrorist activities to
convert them to a kind of guerrilla war. However, to their
disappointment, Azerbaijan retaliated swiftly, promptly, and
solidly by launching a comprehensive operation against terrorism,”
Imran Khalid noted.
He stressed that actually, Armenia did not expect it and that is
why now Pashinyan is finding it difficult to come out of this
situation. Therefore the PM immediately called his friends in the
West instead of Moscow for their support and it was noticed that
Antony Blinken immediately called Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev to ask to stop the anti-terror activities.
“Obviously, this is being done in an effort to stop Azerbaijan
from cleaning up the area from Armenian military personnel there.
We have witnessed that a lot of pressure came from the USA and
other Western countries. The situation differs from previous ones
when Moscow had put pressure on this matter. Pashinyan felt that in
the case of Azerbaijan's further success in the anti-terror
activities, his domestic position would be seriously affected. He
had already seen that people in Yerevan and other Armenian cities
went out to protest against him because of his back-fired foolish
strategy. In short, Pashinyan was desperate to get out of this
situation, and he was seeking the support of his newly found
friends in the West,” the pundit opined.
As for some US Senators who stand with Armenian separatism, he
pointed out that it is more of their personal interest. He said
that right now, the American interest is that they want to increase
their influence in the backyard of Russia and Armenia is the place
for fulfilling this interest. Therefore, they forget all these
principles regarding terrorism and separatism. He concluded that
instead, they put pressure on Azerbaijan, or they do want to show
Pashinyan and Armenians that they are just allies with Armenia.