THE CUP OF PATIENCE AND THE SCALES OF JUSTICE

The statement by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev about a possible resumption of hostilities in Nagornyy Karabakh came like a bolt from the blue for Armenia. "I will have another meeting with the president of Armenia in a few days' time. We're going to this meeting with our own programme. This meeting must play a decisive role in the negotiating process, because this year has seen several meetings, but to no avail. If this meeting is unproductive, then our hope for the talks will run out. And if our hope for the talks runs out, then we have no other way," said the Azerbaijani president ahead of the Munich meeting with Armenian leader Serzh Sargsyan.

The president emphasized that Azerbaijan supports a peaceful solution to the conflict, but this does not mean that we will wait indefinitely for Armenia to withdraw from the territories it has occupied. "If we see that the Armenian side is simply biding its time and wants to 'legitimise' this issue through negotiations, then the negotiations will come to an end," President Aliyev said, voicing Baku's position.

As expected, reaction to the Azerbaijani president's statement was not long in coming. The Armenian leadership and pro-Armenian Russian analysts begun to reassure the world energetically that Aliyev's statement was a bluff and that Azerbaijan would not risk liberating its territories by military means, as this was fraught with possibilities of large numbers of casualties and failure for Azerbaijan itself etc. Any number of arguments were put forward. Armenia began to threaten recognition of the self-proclaimed "NKR", while Russian analysts predicted international recognition of this entity, and some analysts even began to "worry" about the fate of trans-national infrastructural projects - Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum. The press controlled by the Armenian authorities comforted people with assurances that the international mediators would not allow Azerbaijan to resume hostilities, or that Russia would not allow its ally to be harmed.

Indeed, the OSCE Minsk Group cautioned the parties against a military solution to the conflict. "Neither Paris nor Moscow nor Washington see any other alternative to a peaceful resolution of the Karabakh conflict," Fassier, the French co-chairman of the group, told reporters.

Aliyev's statement apparently had an effect. Whereas, following the presidents meeting in Chisinau, the Minsk Group co-chairs had nothing to say about the outcome of negotiations and the Azerbaijani side pointed to increasing destructivism of Armenia's position, after the meeting in Munich the parties noted some progress. The French co-chairman admitted that this time the sides had discussed new details for a settlement which had not been agreed upon before. The Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministries also noted some progress. Therefore it is possible that the Azerbaijani president's statement was a "cold shower" for the Armenian side, and helped Sargsyan to understand the real situation.

However, it would be incorrect to assume that the Azerbaijani president's statement was aimed only at the Munich meeting. Speaking to displaced persons, the head of state issued a serious warning for the future and voiced his country's position, based on international law and the Azerbaijan's sovereign rights.

One must bear in mind that the president knows his country's real potential better than anyone else, and if he did not believe in it he would not assume such a responsibility before his people and history.

In analyzing Azerbaijan' potential to liberate the occupied territories by military means, there is no point in dwelling on Baku's clear economic and military superiority over Yerevan. This is clearly proven by the fact that Azerbaijan's defence budget alone is equal to the entire state budget of Armenia, not to mention the fact that the handouts collected by Sargsyan from around the world are not enough to support Armenia even in peacetime. As for the foreign policy component of this issue, some aspects are worth considering.

First, there is international experience of military solutions to regional conflicts, and it lies with the countries co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group. It's no secret that the US is using weapons to solve its problems in Afghanistan and Iraq, while France fulfilled its ambitions in Central Africa by military means and Russia - in Georgia. Why should Baku not exercise its sovereign right to liberate its ancestral and internationally-recognized land?

Second, parallels drawn by some experts with Georgia's attempt to restore its territorial integrity by military means are incorrect. Unlike neighbouring Georgia, Azerbaijan maintains a very close partnership with Russia and is far more important for Moscow than Georgia and even Armenia. And Moscow is unlikely to sacrifice the dividends from partnership with Baku for the sake of an outpost which cannot offer anything in return. We have already noted that Moscow has not sacrificed its strategic interests in Georgia and made peace with Tbilisi in order to open the only overland link to Armenia.

And, finally, by what logic will the world community object to the implementation of several UN Security Council resolutions which require the unconditional withdrawal of Armenian forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan?

According to the results of an analysis cited by Portland University professor Bruce Gilley in his book "The Right to Rule", Azerbaijan takes first place for the coefficient of government legitimacy within the post-communist countries of Europe and is ninth of 72 countries in the world. 

Such a high indicator clearly shows that the position of the Azerbaijani president reflects the will of his people. That is why the statement by the Azerbaijani president about a possible military option was supported unequivocally by the public. 

Armenia, which is only 62nd for government legitimacy, is dominated by the opposite situation, as was clearly demonstrated by the process of Armenian-Turkish rapprochement and the stir caused in Armenian society by the Azerbaijani president's statement.