Azerbaijan's Announcement on Building a Wall is Exceptionally for Propaganda

• 07.03.2015, 18:03
• Greta Avetisyan
•  Region,  "Insight" Analytical Center ,  Armenia,  Analytics

The announcement of the official Baku that they intend to cut off part of the Terter region villages near the subdivisions of the Armenian armed positions by a wall, in reality is nothing more than another manifestation of Azerbaijan’s "famous" politics. The target of such a declaration or intention is both the international community and its own society.

In the international practice, of course, there are cases, when a country, having problems with its neighbors, builds a wall. However, the level of importance and the objectivity for such a step is another question. The same refers to Azerbaijan. The quite hardened stance of Azerbaijan during the recent period, which is a result of international community’s yielding to Azerbaijan’s "caviar diplomacy," this time, as we see, was demonstrated this way.

As I mentioned, Azerbaijan’s this declaration has two targets. First, with the announcement to build a wall Azerbaijan tries to include a destructive element in the peace process, to show the international community, particularly, the Minsk Group co-chairing countries that it is the Armenian side that violates the ceasefire and the threat comes from there. Azerbaijan, however, does not take into consideration the fact that recently the Co-Chairs have started to mention in their statements that it is Azerbaijan, which violates the ceasefire. This means that the security issue as a pretext to build a wall, will not definitely be perceived.

At the same time, however, one should not exclude that all this can be perceived by the international community the way Azerbaijan wants, given the former’s inadequate response to a series of recent events: closing the office of the coordinator of OSCE in Baku, signing under the Riga Summit final document with reservations, the absence of Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister in the informal meeting of the foreign ministers of the EaP countries, etc. Here one should also pay attention to another fact. Azerbaijan wants to build a wall on the border with the Republic of Armenia, which is not a conflict side.

Second, Azerbaijan also tries with this means to distract the attention of its own society form various events inside the country. Azerbaijan felt the need of such an element after the end of the First European Games, when something was needed to keep the society busy. Building a wall Azerbaijan also solves another question: this is a good reason for the "disappearance" of a part of the huge amount of money coming from oil export.

Taking into consideration all this, everything should be done that Azerbaijan’s this kind of announcements, that are exceptionally used for propaganda, were perceived adequately and did not cause unnecessary confusion over it.