Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 5
By Elmira Tariverdiyeva - Trend:
A political vacuum is gradually emerging around Armenia, and this is not surprising. The unwillingness to deal with Yerevan was to inevitably arise from the Armenian leadership's obsession to oppose itself to all international norms and institutions.
Even an ardent supporter of the Armenians - Nikolai Bordyuzha, the secretary general of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), has decided to dissociate himself from Yerevan. And this is while for so many years, despite all legal norms, Bordyuzha was assuring Armenia that the CSTO forces will come to its aid in case of any deterioration of situation in Nagorno-Karabakh.
In fact, the CSTO didn't have any right to intervene in this situation in the first place, as Nagorno-Karabakh, an Azerbaijani territory around which Armenia and Azerbaijan have been in a conflict for many years, has nothing to do with this organization.
According to the right for collective defense under the Article 51 of the UN Charter, the CSTO has the right to render necessary assistance, including military aid, to the member state in the case of aggression against the member state itself, in this case - Armenia. But if it is about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, then a rightful question arises: what do Azerbaijan's occupied territories have to do with CSTO?
Before, it didn't prevent Bordyuzha from making reassuring statements after which Armenian warlords could sleep peacefully. However everything has changed recently.
Initially, CSTO Deputy Secretary General Valery Semerikov made the Armenians upset. During the exercises of the Collective Peacekeeping Forces in Armenia, Semerikov hinted that the organization is not going to get involved in the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
While stating that Armenia is fully capable to cope with the threats itself, Semerikov tried to bring to the attention of the Armenian generals that the aggravation of the situation is the problem of only Armenia, rather than the bloc. Bordyuzha has recently confirmed that CSTO will be unable to help the aggressor, if the victim of aggression uses its legitimate right and liberates its OWN territories from the invader.
Armenian journalists asked Bordyuzha about the reason of the CSTO's non-interference in an aggravated situation on the contact line between Armenian and Azerbaijani armed forces. Bordyuzha said that the organization can interfere if any of the CSTO member-states is unable to ensure its own security itself. Bordyuzha expressed confidence that Armenia has all opportunities to ensure its security, stability and territorial integrity.
In other words, nothing threatens Armenian territorial integrity for now, and it is of course not endangered, since Nagorno-Karabakh is not Armenia, and the CSTO isn't going to interfere. Quite a clear statement, isn't it?
In addition, Bordyuzha mentioned yet another important point and said that everything depends on the decision of the CSTO Council, which includes the countries which never made decisions to the detriment of Azerbaijan. They include Belarus, which reassures Baku in its sincere friendship, Kazakhstan, which with a purely oriental wisdom will prefer not to quarrel with an influential player in the region, and Russia, relations with which are improving day by day.
All this should be clear to Armenia, which has lost enough on the political chessboard and waits with fear for Azerbaijan's checkmate.
Elmira Tariverdiyeva is the head of Trend Agency's Russian News Service
