BAKU AND MINSK ENRAGE YEREVAN

In the end of November, President Ilham Aliyev visited Belarus. This is his fifth official visit to the friendly country. The Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has visited Azerbaijan four times. These facts show not only the strategic nature of the partnership between Azerbaijan and Belarus, but also the strong friendship between the both leaders.

President Aliyev's visit marked the 25^th anniversary of diplomatic relations between our countries and had a very rich agenda including the signing of bilateral documents, as well as in the final statement of the presidents. Along with priorities for the development of bilateral relations, it explicitly states that "the parties note the significance of the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in accordance with the generally accepted principles and norms of international law, above all, the sovereignty of states, inviolability of borders, and territorial integrity of states."

Baku and Minsk strengthen relations

During the press conference following the signing ceremony, President Aliyev said: "High level of political relations, mutual respect, and trust between our countries, as well as the personal friendship between the presidents is the basis upon which we are building the powerful Belarusian-Azerbaijani friendship today. We actively cooperate in international organisations and support each other on all issues. I would say that this mutual support engages in automatically, no need for discussions, consultations or agreements. Azerbaijan provides an unconditional support to any question raised at international organisations related to Belarus or its candidate nominated for one of the international bodies. We see the same attitude from Belarus. We also support each other in organisations where only one of us is a member, either Azerbaijan or Belarus. This is so natural."

President Aliyev particularly underlined the military and technical cooperation between the two countries. "We are very pleased with this cooperation. Belarus provide the best and the most efficient products. It is not surprising that military-technical cooperation between our countries has had a good history, rather large volumes of deliveries and a good tendency to expand. We signed a memorandum, which will soon become a contract for the purchase of yet another batch of military equipment from Belarus," Aliyev said.

President Lukashenko said the following: "This year we can see the growing mutual trade operations between our countries. Projects initiated by the presidents gain momentum steadily. For example, over the past eleven years, over ten thousand Belarus tractors and special vehicles have been assembled at the Ganja Automobile Plant. The company also produced more than 3.5 thousand vehicles and MAZ trailers. I was pleased to find out today that along with the American and German combine harvesters you purchase the ones produced by Gomselmash in Belarus. We think this is an excellent example of mutually beneficial cooperation. By the way, local employees make up almost half of the staff. This shows the great potential of the Azerbaijani industry and its high personnel potential. MTZ and the Ganja Automobile Plant are currently working on our common project for the assembly of tractors in Turkey. This is an important and promising direction that we will develop further."

Mr. Lukashenko particularly noted another area of cooperation with Azerbaijan: "We can do more together in the transport and logistics spheres. We are ready to get involved in infrastructure projects in Azerbaijan, such as the construction of new railways, seaports, and logistics centres. We can cooperate on health care, education, information and communication technologies, sports, tourism. The implementation of the agreements signed today will allow us to turn our intentions into concrete actions. For example, our specialists are working to create a joint venture in Azerbaijan for the production of Belarusian medicines. I believe that the implementation of other large-scale, interesting projects is not far off."

"I think that cooperation in the transport sector will be one of the main directions of our future cooperation. You noted, Mr. President, the North-South transport corridor. Azerbaijan has already completed all works related to the operation of this corridor in our territory. Now we are working on the further upgrade of our transport infrastructure, which is already capable of transporting significant volumes of cargo. Azerbaijan is also an active participant in the East-West transport corridor project. I think that the coordination of our actions on these two major transport routes will create completely new conditions for cooperation, lead to opening of thousands, tens of thousands of new jobs, and significantly increase cargo and passenger traffic between our countries. It is no coincidence that one of the important topics of the meeting of the intergovernmental commission, which was held yesterday (November 18, R+), covered the issues related to the transport sector," President Aliyev said.

The facts, examples and assessments given by the leaders of Azerbaijan and Belarus in their statements indicate that the strategic partnership has been established, passed the tests, and has been progressing. The subjects of economic activity have long outgrown simple trade operations and reached the level of cooperation in the production of high-tech products, with the expected promotion of jointly produced goods and services to the markets of third countries. In this context, Azerbaijan can become a good basis for promoting joint interests of partners in the markets of Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and the Middle East, while Belarus, in turn, can do this with respect to the Baltic region and North-Eastern Europe. In addition to geographical advantages available to each of the partners, Belarus can contribute to joint projects with its powerful scientific and industrial base, preserved from Soviet times, highly qualified personnel, and Azerbaijan - good orientation in the markets of Muslim countries and significant free financial resources.

What caused hysteria in Yerevan?

The strategic partnership of Azerbaijan and Belarus is based on the strengthening and expansion of mutual and multilateral cooperation and is not directed against the third countries. However, this caused open hostility in Yerevan. After all, Armenia is formally an ally of Belarus in the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) but Minsk considers Azerbaijan to be a priority partner in the South Caucasus. Over the last eight months, the Armenian-Belarusian trade turnover reached only $31 million, which is almost 10 times less than the volume of trade between Baku and Minsk over the same period.

Yerevan has nothing to oppose to existing realities. Therefore, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian shows his irritation by making ridiculous insults, accusations and demands. In his recent interview, Mr. Pashinian expressed his surprise that the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, after the summit of the CSTO in Astana, told the details of the closed meeting to the Ambassador of Azerbaijan in Minsk. Pashinian  promised to demand clarifications from both Mr. Lukashenko and the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who had said that the right to appoint the CSTO Secretary General would be transferred to Minsk. In response, the spokesman for the Belarus Foreign Ministry said the following: "Apparently, the acting Prime Minister of Armenia thinks he's an international prosecutor with the right to punish or pardon. Perhaps this was acceptable when the former CSTO Secretary General was the Armenian national Yuri Khachaturov. But interstate relations are traditionally based on quite clear rules of protocol and etiquette. Perhaps, Mr. Pashinian has not yet understood that the rules of the so-called street democracy are not acceptable in big politics. It's a pity. We hope that it'll pass in due time."

Pashinian's predecessors, who had to face similar unpleasant situations earlier, had nevertheless enough experience not to go into public confrontation with their formal allies. For example, in May 2014, the Kazakh president Mr. Nazarbayev publicly embarrassed Serzh Sargsyan and Edward Nalbandian when he read the letter of President Ilham Aliyev "addressed to three of us" (Putin, Lukashenko and Nazarbayev). The demand of the Azerbaijani leader to prevent the enforcement of the EAEU rules on Nagorno-Karabakh, when Armenia was admitted to this organisation, was not only voiced, but also recognised. Presidents Lukashenko and Nazarbayev did not support Yerevan verbally during the outbreak of hostilities in April 2016. This caused a wave of indignation in the Armenian media, but Serzh Sargsyan and members of his government limited themselves to expressing bewilderment and mournful lamentation.

Perhaps, the incumbent "revolutionary" leader of Armenia, Nikol Pashinian, who surprisingly easily managed to overthrow Serzh Sargsyan and seize the power, thinks he is one of the world leaders. But he is just a leader, albeit not completely legitimate, of the country, which behaves like a beggar. "I demand explanations on what happened and on a number of other issues... We are not going to be silent when it comes to the interests of Armenia," Pashinian said underlining that Yerevan has always perfectly fulfilled obligations as a CSTO ally. Nevertheless, he preferred to evade the summit of the EAEU heads of government in early December in Minsk, where he could directly address his claims to his allies and opponents. Instead, Pashinian makes pretentious speeches at meetings with his supporters and repeatedly makes his favourite thesis that "Armenia is a small country, but a great nation." So, judging by the silent reaction to Mr. Pashinian's statements, it seems that they have not impressed the world yet.

Pashinian said that he would try to clarify the relations and obligations of the allies in CSTO and EAEU and primarily to ban arms supplies to Azerbaijan. In turn, the leaders of Belarus and Kazakhstan may well ask Pashinian to explain the compatibility of the CSTO membership with the long-standing occupation of Azerbaijani territories in violation of resolutions of the UN Security Council and the CIS Charter. Also, will Pashinian dare demand clarification from Moscow regarding the supply of weapons to Azerbaijan, which was ten times more than that received from Minsk?

On the other hand, all this rhetoric may well serve as a preparation of public opinion for the withdrawal of Armenia from the CSTO. Pashinian and his supporters called for this when they were in opposition. After becoming the prime minister, Pashinian has changed his position radically, but his people still think that the CSTO membership is useless and it is enough for Armenia to have only bilateral alliance with Moscow. It is quite likely that Pashinian deliberately provokes conflicts within the CSTO to get an excuse to quit this organisation, but at the same time to shift responsibility for the crisis inside the bloc to Alexander Lukashenko and Nursultan Nazarbayev, who are allegedly rejecting him and Armenia. On the other hand, Armenia's withdrawal from CSTO can be an incentive for Washington and Brussels to provide additional support to Armenia in the issue of the Karabakh settlement, as well as the desired financial and economic assistance.

Apparently, such sentiments are very strong in the Armenian establishment. Advisor to the President of Armenia, Tevan Poghosian, during his press conference voiced the idea that Yerevan could decide to leave the CSTO, if it is in the interests of the country. But Poghosian forgot to mention that in this case Armenia will not be able to buy Russian weapons at preferential prices, as bilateral agreement with Russia does not guarantee such preferences.

Western political and analytical community also forecasts distancing of Armenia from Moscow under the new government. Thus, the famous American analytical centre Stratfor noted the following: "Armenia has traditionally been one of the closest and most loyal allies of Russia — the country is a member of the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union and the Collective Security Treaty Organization military bloc — but political tensions have emerged between Armenia and Russia in recent months following the rise to power of opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan in April's Velvet Revolution." According to Stratfor, "The United States hopes to exploit these tensions by driving a wedge between Armenia and Russia — something it has already tried to do, as evidenced by U.S. national security adviser John Bolton's visit to Armenia last month, when he expressed the United States' interest in selling weapons to Armenia."

Pashinian plays quite a risky game in CSTO, which can be costly for Armenia. Yet it's in the spirit of revolutionary romance of politicians from the street. We'll see whether Pashinian leaves his populism for more serious business or chooses a more prudent course of action after the expected victory in the parliamentary elections in early December. One thing is clear though that Armenia continues to push itself deeper in the status of a rogue state while Azerbaijan is developing its relations with all its neighbours in the post-Soviet region.