ANATOMY OF A PROVOCATION

"Sequence of tenses" is a grammar term familiar to most of those who have learnt English from old Soviet textbooks. Teachers say that this part of English grammar seems particularly daunting for those beginning to learn English, especially if one has to learn it without appropriate language practice. 

However, sometimes mistakes with the sequence of tenses are made not only at an English lesson in a school or a higher education facility but in life or, what's worse, in politics. Some people are finding it hard to come to terms with the fact that we are now in the 21st century, not 19th or 20th. This is apparently what happened to Zoriy Balayan who decided to promote himself by publishing a lengthy open letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Golos Armenii newspaper. The headline speaks for itself - the Karabakh Problem is Russia's Problem. 

We need to make a little clarification here. Two hundred years have elapsed since the signing of the Treaty of Gulistan which registered Russia's first territorial acquisitions in the South Caucasus as early as in October 1813: Persia acknowledged Russia's dominion over Dagestan, Georgia and even part of the modern-day Azerbaijan (Baku, Karabakh, Ganca, Sirvan, Saki, Derbent and Quba Khanates). Part of Lankaran Khanate was also moved under Russia. Apart from this, Russia reserved an exclusive right to keep a military fleet in the Caspian Sea. For Azerbaijan this agreement meant the start of the division into the south and the north. 

Currently, this agreement is only interesting for historians alone. This is more so given that, another agreement, Treaty of Turkmenchay, was signed 15 years later, in 1828. None of the signatory countries of the document exist now and their successors no longer border on each other.  

Nevertheless, Yerevan tried to use the anniversary of the no longer valid treaty as a pretext for further hysteria, thickly embroiled in falsifications. In occupied Karabakh they organized a scientific conference notoriously entitled "The people's liberation struggle of the Armenians of 'Artsakh' (here and subsequently the quotes are ours - ed. note): from Gulistan to our era", which was arranged to coincide either with the bicentenary of the treaty or the 25th anniversary of the "Karabakh movement". And they held it in the "parliament" of a "republic" recognized by nobody, from the outset imparting the whole spectacle with political meaning.

And the "jubilee events" had hardly died down before "Voice of Armenia" was publishing a very lengthy letter by one of those who back in the 1980s were diligently fanning the conflict between the two neighbouring peoples.

Briefly, the content of this very voluminous letter, full of scandalously falsified historical references and quotes "plucked" from authors well-known for their pro-Armenian persuasion, boils down to a simple postulate. First, Zoriy Gaykovich talks at length about the "historical ties" between Russia and Armenia. Second, he declares that according to the treaties of Gulistan and Turkmenchay, the "historic Armenian lands" (in reality, let us recall, the mass re-settlement of the Armenians to the South Caucasus, including the territories of the Karabakh and Erivan Khanates, began immediately after the signing of the Turkmenchay treaty) were annexed to Russia. But most importantly, Balayan tries to convince the Russian president, to whom this note is addressed, that Russia should immediately take up the re-establishment of the "historical injustice" and establish its rights to the territories defined by the Gulistan and Turkmenchay treaties. In other words, in Balayan's opinion, in the same way Moscow is obliged to set about the "return" to Armenia of all its "historical territories". Balayan included in them not just Karabakh, both upland [Nagornyy] and lowland, and also Naxcivan, the territory of the former Girdiman Khanate, renamed "Gardman" in Armenian, and so on. It would appear that the author was trying to argue that Azerbaijan was a "second Turkey", and enquires: "…What kind of territorial integrity are we talking about if, as we already know, no Azerbaijan existed before the October Revolution? Surely it is clear that a list of all the compromises should include all the Armenian territories that were illegally a part of the artificially created union republic?" Balayan says nothing about the fact that Armenia was created artificially on Azerbaijani lands, of which there is plenty of proof, including the Treaty of Gulistan. And he was truly outraged why there was not even a common border between Armenia and Russia.

Then came the turning point. Zoriy Balayan urged Vladimir Putin…to visit Karabakh, including the "liberated", i.e. the occupied districts, in order to demonstrate, so to speak, the historic ties and the "consolidation" of Russia's rights to the lands defined by the Gulistan and Turkmenchay treaties.

Let's make a stipulation straightaway: this is not an occasion when one needs to scrupulously, using figures, dates, sources, years of publication and page numbers, reject the whole of Zoriy Balayan's fascist ravings. Without going into a detailed analysis of such absurd claptrap, we should merely note that Zoriy Balayan's letter appeared against a rather interesting background. Let us recall: quite recently, on 3 September, Armenia stated its readiness to join the Russian-created Customs Union. And now Yerevan is confident that Russia simply has to shower its "advance post" with all kinds of possible and impossible benefits. And Russian domestic prices for energy carriers, the waiving of debts and credits and new financial injections are here considered a "trifle", unworthy of attention or discussion. The Yerevan nationalists consider "payment for loyalty" exclusively in the form of territorial "gifts.

Yerevan is already aware that the Karabakh adventure has been a failure. The war, as Baku reminds them, is still not over. And Azerbaijan reserves the right to re-establish its territorial integrity by all lawful means.  The balance of military strength is changing, and it is not to Armenia's benefit. Its economy is quietly "collapsing", not least because Azerbaijan is steadily "distancing" the aggressor-country from its economic projects. The trends are too obvious and they do not bode well for the Armenian nationalists, especially considering the fact that Yerevan is starting to say that it is time to "cast off the curse of Karabakh and start living in a humane way".

But it seems that Yerevan has now decided that Russia will "sort out" Azerbaijan for them. Or to be more precise, Zoriy Gaykovich tried to convince himself that once Armenia joined the Customs and Eurasian Unions the situation in the zone of the Karabakh conflict would return to the realities of the mid-1980s when "delegations of the Armenian intelligentsia" assiduously tried to persuade the Soviet leaders how fine and "expedient" it was to hand over Karabakh to Armenia. And all conceivable and inconceivable arguments are being set in motion.

The trouble is, though, the "time discrepancy" has prevented Zoriy Balayan and others like him from recognizing the simple truth: it is now the 21st century with all its rules and realities, where Azerbaijan is not a union republic with "conditional" borders, but an independent state, recognized by the UN. And most importantly, our country has proved to be one of the few that succeeded after the collapse of the USSR to build, if you like, "mature" relations with Russia without the intrusive enumeration of "historical obligations" and emotional reminders of historical grudges, but also with all kinds of long-term areas of cooperation. The Yerevan-based "Lragir" was quite precise on this point: "Clearly, Putin won't go to 'Artsakh'. Russian-Azerbaijani relations are currently at a much higher level than Armenian-Russian relations." And it goes on: "It would be better to give it money for a new round-the-world expedition. Zoriy Balayan's visits to Armenia never ended well." And now this warning is targeted not just at Armenia, but also at Russia.