Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev giving a speech in occupied Berdzor (May 28, 2023)
The United States has praised Azerbaijan’s offer of “amnesty” to Artsakh—made under the threat of a military operation against the region’s Armenian population.
“We recently expressed appreciation for Prime Minister Pashinyan’s commitment to peace, and we welcome President Aliyev’s recent remarks on consideration of amnesty,” US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a press statement on May 30.
During a speech on May 28, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev said that if the Armenian authorities of Artsakh agree to “surrender,” Azerbaijan would be ready to “talk of an amnesty.” Aliyev demanded that Artsakh dissolve its local government and accept Azerbaijani citizenship, suggesting that he could force the region to disband its leadership by force.
“The book of ‘Miatsum’ is closed. The book of separatism is closed. The dream of independence follows the path of status. As for the status, we sent it to where it belongs during the second Karabakh war,” Aliyev said. ‘Miatsum,’ or ‘unification,’ refers to the Artsakh independence movement’s call for unification with Armenia.
“Therefore, there is only one option left—to obey the laws of Azerbaijan, be a loyal and normal citizen of Azerbaijan, throw the false state attributes in the trash, and dissolve the ‘parliament’—as if there is a ‘parliament’ there, as if there is a president, as if there is a minister. All this is funny. We are simply being patient. However, everyone knows perfectly well that we have all the opportunities to carry out any operation in that region today. Therefore, the ‘parliament’ should be dissolved, the element calling himself ‘president’ should surrender, all ‘ministers,’ ‘deputies’ and others should give up their positions. Only in that case can a concession be made to them. Only in that case can we talk of an amnesty,” Aliyev continued.
Western leaders have been encouraging Azerbaijan to engage in direct talks with Artsakh leadership to safeguard the rights and security of its population. Aliyev’s bellicose speech came just two weeks after the Azerbaijani President and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met in Brussels to negotiate a peace treaty. During the meeting, European Council president Charles Michel “encouraged Azerbaijan to engage in developing a positive agenda with the aim of guaranteeing the rights and security” of the Armenians living in Artsakh. Michel also “raised the need for a transparent and constructive dialogue between Baku and this population.”
After the meeting, Pashinyan said for the first time that he is ready to recognize Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan. While his announcement was welcomed by the West as a positive step in negotiations, it sparked outrage across Armenia, the Diaspora and Artsakh, whose authorities defended the “right of self-determination of our people.” Pashinyan has also called for an international mechanism to mediate direct talks between Azerbaijan and Artsakh. Azerbaijan has repeatedly dismissed this idea, claiming that talks with Artsakh are an internal matter.
The authorities of Armenia and Artsakh condemned Aliyev’s speech. Lusine Avanesyan, spokesperson for the Artsakh President, denounced Aliyev’s “illegal demands to the elected authorities of the people of Artsakh.”
The Artsakh Foreign Ministry criticized the “inaction of the international community, including the international mediators involved in the settlement process,” to reverse Azerbaijan’s “policy of threats and violence.”
“Ignoring the true intentions and violations of the international obligations of Azerbaijan, as well as attempts by international mediators to seek constructiveness in Azerbaijan’s openly genocidal agenda, are self-deception and are tantamount to approving Baku’s criminal actions,” the Artsakh Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The Artsakh Foreign Ministry specifically criticized the Russian authorities, whose peacekeeping forces have been stationed in Artsakh since the end of the 2020 Artsakh War, for failing to respond to Azerbaijan’s threats of a military operation.
In response to Aliyev’s speech, Michel called on the leaders to “refrain from maximalist positions and aim for dialogue.” “Dialogue between Baku and Armenians living in former NKAO on their rights & security is now crucial,” Michel tweeted on May 30.
Aliyev also threatened military action against Armenia during his May 28 speech, which was delivered in occupied Berdzor (Lachin). Armenia ceded Berdzor to Azerbaijan after the 2020 Artsakh War. Aliyev said that a peace treaty should be based on Azerbaijan’s conditions, including the opening of “our road to Nakhichevan.”
“I am saying these conditions here in the city of Lachin so that everyone can see that we are here today and we will be here forever. Let them know that we can see Armenian villages from here. We can see those villages, so they shouldn’t forget about that,” Aliyev said.
Azerbaijan has demanded the establishment of the “Zangezur corridor,” an extraterritorial corridor connecting Azerbaijan and its exclave Nakhichevan through Syunik, Armenia’s southernmost province. Armenia has insisted that the route must respect the sovereignty of Armenia’s borders.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev had an argument during the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council meeting (RA Prime Minister)
During a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council in Moscow on May 25, Pashinyan and Aliyev entered an argument about the “Zangezur corridor.” The leaders of Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan met at the Kremlin. After Aliyev mentioned the corridor during his speech to the group of leaders, Pashinyan interrupted Russian President Vladimir Putin to interject that the term corridor “has been used in recent years as a title for making territorial claims against Armenia.”
During the heated exchange that ensued, Aliyev denied any territorial claims. “You have to try very hard or have a wild imagination to see territorial claims,” Aliyev replied.
Pashinyan criticized Aliyev’s equating the “Zangezur Corridor” with the Berdzor (Lachin) Corridor. The Berdzor Corridor is the sole route connecting Artsakh with Armenia. Under the ceasefire agreement ending the 2020 Artsakh War, Azerbaijan agreed to guarantee traffic safety along the corridor. The corridor has been closed by Azerbaijan since December 2022, placing Artsakh under blockade and restricting the region’s access to food, medicine and other basic necessities. One of Azerbaijan’s demands to end the blockade has been the establishment of the “Zangezur Corridor.”
“You said ‘Lachin road,’ but according to our trilateral declaration, ‘Lachin road’ does not exist. There is a corridor which, according to the trilateral declaration signed by three of us, should be under the control of Russian peacekeeping forces; that is, no one else should exercise any control of this corridor. And what is happening there is a direct violation of the trilateral declaration. And you said that the corridor is open, but we don’t see it,” Pashinyan said, before Putin interrupted him to end the debate.
No agreements were reached following a trilateral meeting between Pashinyan, Aliyev and Putin in Moscow on May 25. Aliyev and Pashinyan will meet in Moldova’s capital Chisinau on June 1, along with Michel, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.