#WT։ "Azerbaijan is not interested in establishing peace, "Zangezur corridor" is a dangerous demand"

Anyone following the rhetoric of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev might conclude that his statements reveal not a roadmap for peace but a campaign based on a covert attempt at territorial revision, wrote Grigor Hovhannisyan, a former ambassador to the United States and former deputy foreign minister of Armenia, in an article published in The Washington Times.
Immediately after meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at a summit in Abu Dhabi on July 10, Aliyev triumphantly tweeted about the future implementation of the “Zangezur Corridor,” using the Azerbaijani name for the area. In a recent speech widely quoted in Azerbaijani media, he said: “There must be a smooth and unhindered passage from Azerbaijan to Azerbaijan, without any checks or obstacles. This is our demand.”

As the diplomat emphasized, this formulation shows that Aliyev’s vision is not limited to the traditional transit route. He seeks a corridor that would be free from Armenian border control. This is about the revision of borders. Hovannisian stressed that although Baku presents this demand as a logical step towards peace, its legal, historical and geopolitical foundations are weak.

According to the author, no treaty, UN provision or precedent forces a country to cede control of its territory in order to facilitate communication between the separated parts of another state.

“If Trump really wants to take credit for the Armenian-Azerbaijani settlement, this should be done by forcing Aliyev to back down from his ambitions,” Hovannisian concluded.