But… in the end, Azerbaijan can count the results of the summit as a gain for itself. At the meeting, which Ilham Aliyev did not attend, Pashinyan had to sign a document recognizing Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity within an area of 86,600 square kilometers. As experts have already calculated, this includes not only Karabakh, but also the enclaves. The necessity of border delimitation is indicated, which in itself is disastrous for the Armenian Prime Minister, as he will have to return the territories in the border areas to Azerbaijan and also bury the cries of “invasion of Armenia’s sovereign territory”.
Moreover, President of the European Council Charles Michel promised to invite Aliyev and Pashinyan to Brussels at the end of October. Without mentioning in any way the involvement of Scholz and, most importantly, Macron in the meeting, which is another undeniable political success for Azerbaijan: our country revives the old Brussels format and knocks France out of the ranks of mediators.
To say that Azerbaijan has grounds for this is an understatement. Even at the Granada summit, Macron stooped to outright lies, saying that Türkiye and Azerbaijan had “refused” to participate in the talks, while it was France that did its best to make sure that Türkiye did not join the Granada meeting, a fact brought up by the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan in its statement. It does not become a president to voice blatant fakes.
It is one thing when Pashinyan, who in the three years in the prime ministerial chair never learned that a tabloid editor and a head of government bear different responsibility for their words, does this. But Macron? Sadly, the friendship between Armenia and France has not raised Armenia to the French level—it is lowering France to the Armenian level instead. In everything, right down to the willingness of Paris to voice at the official level all the delusional ramblings of Armenian propaganda, which was done, in particular, by French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna.
No wonder that following the summit, Ambassador-at-Large Elchin Amirbayov said in an interview to the French media that France has zero credibility in Azerbaijan’s eyes even as a potential mediator in the process of normalization of relations with Armenia.
And now Macron’s EU colleagues are assiduously reining him in. This does not only mean a call from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev. One can only guess what is going on behind the scenes in Europe, but at the Granada summit Macron had to say through set teeth that there would be no sanctions against Azerbaijan.
Finally, the idea of “ambitious support” for Armenia was also essentially shot down. Yes, Pashinyan heard a lot of nice words, but nothing more than that. Mere pennies are allocated to help “refugees” from Karabakh. This will be enough for quite fair indignation of Baku (where were European politicians at the peak of the humanitarian disaster with a million refugees in Azerbaijan?), but it is too little to really change the situation in Armenia. As a result, the Armenian public itself speaks with irony about the “parade of promises” and resents the EU for not putting its money where its mouth is. Pashinyan’s signing of a document specifying the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan within an area of 86,600 square kilometers is being called “another capitulation”, with the “kebab PM” being accused of having “surrendered” Tigranashen, i.e., Karki, to Azerbaijan.
This means that Azerbaijan did not just manage a demarche before the summit in Granada. Ilham Aliyev’s diplomacy and policy proved to be so grandmaster-like that Azerbaijan won at the summit without even attending it. Azerbaijan is not a country that Europe can afford not to hear. Even if it is very tempting to broadcast Armenian lamentations on all microphones.
And this is Azerbaijan’s main accomplishment that goes beyond the Granada summit.
Nurani
Translated from Minval.az
