Military analyst Alexander Artamonov, who last month interviewed Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev among several journalists, shared his impressions of this and other meetings in Baku. In an hour-long conversation on the Day TV channel, Artamonov touched upon virtually the entire spectrum of problems of the post-war settlement of the situation around Nagorno-Karabakh.
He calculated that during the Second Karabakh War, Ilham Aliyev spoke about peace 23 times, while Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan never.
Today, according to Artamonov, Baku intends to build its relations with Yerevan and even talk about the return of ethnic Armenians to the territory of Azerbaijan. At the same time, about 35 thousand Armenians now live on the territory of Azerbaijan, who do not feel any pressure on themselves. "Azerbaijan is not ready to forgive the Khojaly tragedy, but people do not want a conflict with Armenia. I did not notice aggressive symbols in Baku," Artamonov said.
However, according to the expert, Yerevan is not ready to sign a peace treaty. Now on the territory of Armenia there are employees of Western intelligence services, including the French, who are trying to "muddy the waters", and "extremist groups sent from Western Europe are pursuing the goal of fanning the conflict."
Azerbaijan does not want to fight, does not want anything but peace. He sees himself as a regional force, equidistant from major centers of influence; is not included in any military bloc. Demonstrating this equidistance, Ilham Aliyev held a press conference for about four hours in four languages - Azerbaijani, Turkish, English and Russian. By the way, speaking about military cooperation, the President of Azerbaijan said that Russian weapons are the best in the world, and the army construction in the country follows the Turkish model.
Alexander Artamonov drew attention to the fact that today Azerbaijan hopes that Armenia will provide it with maps of minefields. However, the expert expressed doubt that Yerevan would provide these maps to Baku, since during the hostilities there was a "terrorist planting of mines", in particular, the bodies of servicemen were mined. Armenian sappers are not going to clear the territories themselves. Considering these problems, it may take about 20 years for the complete demining of Nagorno-Karabakh, according to the expert's assessment.
