Page 70 - bne IntelliNews monthly magazine December 2023

70 Opinion
bne December 2023
Ursula von der Leyen meeting President Ilham Aliyev in 2022. / bne IntelliNews COMMENT
Aliyev could still lose in the Great Game he started
Robert Ananyan in Yerevan
The Great Game in the South Caucasus continues despite the de facto dissolution of Nagorno-Karabakh. Russia and the West are in fierce competition to reconcile Armenia and Azerbaijan, which would also confirm one of them as the prime mover in the South Caucasus.
After its new attack on Karabakh on September 19, relations between the West and Azerbaijan have become complicated.
Azerbaijan, which is in alliance with Turkey and Russia
to remove the West from the region, recently refused to negotiate with Armenia through the mediation of European Council President Charles Michel in Brussels. The USA and the EU had strongly pressured Aliyev, who broke his promise not to start a war against Nagorno-Karabakh, according to German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.
In order not to suffer political losses from the occupation of
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Karabakh, Aliyev first refused to go to Granada to participate in the meeting with Michel, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, and then also cancelled the meeting in Brussels. Afterwards he announced in Bishkek that his preferred format is with Russian mediation. He invited the Armenian premier to both Moscow and Tbilisi. This is Aliyev's blackmail against the West to block any pressure on Baku.
In Granada, Armenia received the support of Germany, France, and the European Union (EU), which in a sense is a kind of security guarantee. In the agreed statement, what happened in Nagorno-Karabakh was described as a mass displacement, and there was unwavering support for Armenia's sovereignty, territorial integrity, and inviolability of borders. It was also mentioned that borders should be drawn according to the last map of the USSR.