Baku, Azerbaijan, June 29
By Elmira Tariverdiyeva - Trend:
The threat of separatism seems to be one of the most important challenges for all the countries. The EU countries are no exception. For instance, one of the most terrible consequences of the UK’s Brexit referendum has been the rise of separatist sentiments in Europe, which greatly bothers Brussels.
Perhaps nowadays the best time has come to explain to the West the whole horrors of cases of separatist impunity, one of the striking examples being the occupation of Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region.
On June 29, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini presented the Global Strategy for the EU’s Foreign and Security Policy.
The document reads that sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of states, the inviolability of borders and the peaceful settlement of disputes are key elements of the European security order.
“These principles apply to all states, both within and beyond the EU’s borders,” said the document.
Sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity stand at the foundations of the modern world order, but in relation to Azerbaijan their importance has been as if ignored by international community for many years.
Instead of putting pressure on Armenia and ensuring the forced withdrawal of Armenian troops from Azerbaijani lands, the international actors with their silence have encouraged the separatist activities of Armenian authorities.
The silence and indifference have led to many casualties in the military confrontation in the Azerbaijani territories.
It is absurd to insist on fruitless negotiations, when the facts speak for themselves – Armenia has occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territories and created a puppet separatist regime in Nagorno-Karabakh. Unfortunately, the EU didn’t care about that.
However, everything has recently changed. Today, not only the EU itself, but also its member countries are facing a threat of collapse. Brexit’s results are dramatically changing the geopolitical situation in the EU, and the revival of separatist sentiments in Europe and the growing popularity of anti-EU right-wing parties, which support those sentiments, are only parts of a big problem to be faced by the West.
It is already obvious that Europe will be agitated for more than a year. Gibraltar wants to stay in the EU. It has already started negotiations with Scotland, which also voted to remain in the EU.
Northern Ireland will also likely join those negotiations eventually. The citizens of these three parts of the UK voted for the preservation of the country's EU membership.
The separation of the UK’s parts will encourage the Basques in Spain, Belgian right-wing Flemish party members, Faroese people in Denmark and many others to aspire to separate from their countries and become independent by all means.
The Nagorno-Karabakh region, which has been occupied by Armenia for more than 20 years, is one of the precedents of such ‘separation’. If the West does not toughly react to this outrage today, Europe can tomorrow turn into an area consisting of ever-warring small countries.
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Elmira Tariverdiyeva is the head of Trend Agency's Russian news service