YEREVAN—In a recent Cabinet session, the Armenian government approved the procedure for organizing and conducting joint working meetings between bilateral commissions on state border delimitation and security with Azerbaijan.
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Why am I getting the feeling that Alief simply cannot travel to EU countries? Recently he visited Bishkek, then Tbilisi. After that Serbia (non-EU). And all of a sudden they now want to hold their meetings on the Armenian border. Is there a better explanation?
Aliyev is hostile to the EU and the West, just like his friends and allies Putin, Erdogan and Lukashenko, because as a dictator, the values of democracy and human rights are anathema to him, as they are to his fellow dictators Putin, Erdogan and Lukashenko. Furthemore back in 2015, he attacked the EU, and said that “foreign influence and the so-called Western values that our people do not share.” In 2019, he portrayed Europe as “degenerated” with the use of conservative tropes about gender roles. He said, “Shall we integrate to a place where there is no difference being made between men and women? We definitely shall not.” He also claimed that Azerbaijan is “a state based on traditional values, one of which is respect for elders. We must defend this. And let the youth hear me.” The same things were uttered by Putin, Lukashenko and Erdogan. Aliyev openly expressed his admiration for Putin, praising him as “the president of the leading country in the world, who is number one among the politicians of the world.” No wonder why there is such a bromance between Aliyev and Putin, Lukashenko and Erdogan, and their shared hostility to the EU and the West. Armenia’s pro-Western shift in its foreign policy under Pashinyan, have also infuriated Putin and Aliyev. And in order to punish Pashinyan for challenging Putin, Russia’s national interests and for aligning Armenia to the West, Putin gave Aliyev his blessing to launch the Second Artsakh War in 2020, the border attacks and occupation of Armenian territory between 2021-2023, and the destruction of Artsakh and the ethnic cleansing of all Artsakhi Armenians in 2023. Aliyev portrays European criticism of his authoritarian rule, his oppression of human rights and of the political opposition, and his agression against Armenia, as being “biased”, “anti-Azerbaijan” and “pro-Armenia”.