THREATS ON ANTI-TERROSRIST ACTIONS
Vardan Grigoryan

Hayots Ashkharh Daily
Sept 4 2007
Armenia

Carrying out "anti-terrorist actions" in Karabakh, a proposal advanced
once again by a number of Azerbaijani officials and MPs, reminds of
steps aimed at the preparation for a large-scale war.

The Azeri Foreign Minister’s August 31 statement, demanding the
implementation of the UN Security Council’s Resolution # 874 on
the Deployment of the Armenian Armed Forces from the "Occupied
Territories", in addition to other resolutions, reminding more of a
threat of war, is an evidence of Azerbaijan’s aggressive intentions.

And the facts testifying to Azerbaijan’s extensive procurement of
arms and ammunition from a number of CIS countries have significantly
increased.

Azerbaijan’s intention of refusing to submit a report on the
implementation of the Treaty on the Restriction of General Armament
and bringing its armament out of the international inspectors’
control is not something accidental.

The following question comes up: to what extent are Baku’s threats
on resuming the military actions real at the present moment? Is it
possible that we are dealing with the regular internal political
scenario raffled by President Ilham Aliev prior to the 2008 electoral
process, with the purpose of robbing the Opposition of the ‘Karabakh
playing card’?

We believe that the two scenarios possible in Azerbaijan in conditions
of the new developments around the country not only contradict but also
intermingle with one another in some respect, at least for the time
being. The political leadership of Azerbaijan has started preparing
for 2008 on the world scale; their preparation is also addressed to
the serious changes expected in our region, as the country hopes that
those changes will contribute to the settlement of the Karabakh issue.

In 2008, presidential elections will be held not only in Armenia and
Azerbaijan, but also in Russia and the United States. In the meantime,
both Presidents of our region’s principal players are ending their
second term of office in 2008. During such "transitional periods" there
always occur some fluctuations in the policy of superpowers. Therefore,
Azerbaijan has, in the short-term prospect, decided to "fish in
troubled waters".

Of course, the "program minimum" proposed by I. Aliev, currently
acting from bellicose positions is a desire to restrict the field of
maneuvers during the 2008 presidential elections. But what is going
to happen after that?

The attempts aimed at accusing Armenia of complicity in terrorism
through the advocacy tools of third countries need a special
attention. After all, for the West and especially the United States
terrorism, as an accusation, is the main weapon of initiating a war.

The last masterpiece of Azerbaijani advocacy publicized through
the channels of "Crime and Justice" American publishing house has
recently made an attempt to imitate this practice of the Americans in
a primitive manner. As reported by "Novosti Azerbaijan", the American
publishing house insists that "by supporting terrorism on the state
level, Armenia provides material assistance to ASALA terrorist group."

The fact that this kind of strange allusion to ASALA, an organization
which terminated its activity long ago, was made in the American
publication by the Azerbaijani advocacy machine is beyond dispute. And
the most important thing is not content of such a primitive fraud,
but rather, the fact that Azerbaijan’s public promises of initiating
anti-terrorist actions coincide in time aspect with the ridiculous
attempts aimed at finding relations between Armenian and international
terrorism and terrorists.

The existence of the whole palette of the practical and advocacy steps
aimed at preparing for war demands that the Azerbaijani leadership
estimate the prospects of our country’s and our nation’s developments
in a new way and plan and implement relevant steps both on the
international arena and inside our country during the coming 1-2 years.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress