Shall transit save Armenia? It's hard to believe

By Leila Tariverdieva, Day.az

While receiving the newly appointed Ambassador of Canada to Azerbaijan on Monday, President Ilham Aliyev made a number of important statements. Including regarding the peace treaty with Armenia. The head of state stressed that the most important condition of the peace agreement is the amendment of the Constitution of Armenia, since it contains territorial claims against Azerbaijan, and until this happens, peace will not be signed.

Armenian experts and Western officials call these demands maximalist and slowing down the peace process. Recently, there has been clear pressure on Baku from the West to speed up the peace process without guarantees of its long-term nature. Such pressure has not been observed before. It is noticeable that Yerevan's new patrons, in particular the United States, have certain plans for the region that cannot be realized without peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Judging by the rhetoric of State Department representatives, this concerns communications and logistics.

This topic has never sounded so obsessively and persistently in the statements of the American side. However, it should be clear to everyone that without removing territorial claims to Azerbaijan from Armenian legislation, the peace document will be ambiguous, and any communications will be unreliable. The roads can open and function only until the moment when Armenia, having straightened its feathers, again turns its gaze to the Azerbaijani lands. Unfortunately, such a probability is very high. Let us say even more - we have no doubt that in the event of a change of power in Armenia, they will remember after some time that the peace treaty does not comply with the Constitution, and everything will start anew. If someone is trying to secure Armenia in such a case, counting on the fact that international logistics routes will make the aggressor untouchable, this is a big mistake. Transport corridors will not give Armenia any guarantees of security if it decides to talk about "miatsum" again.

While the US is lobbying for Armenian transit via the East-West route, another newly-minted ally of Yerevan, India, is concerned about the North-South corridor via Armenia. On the eve, Armenian media published an interview with the director of the Indian think tank Abhino Pandya, who stated that the best option for India is the North-South via Armenia, not via Azerbaijan. The reason is Baku's good relations with Pakistan, which, Pandya believes, could cause problems. Moreover, Pakistan intends to join the North-South via Azerbaijan. In June of this year, cargo was delivered from Pakistan to Dagestan via this route for the first time.

Initially, Armenia was not included in the North-South project. It appeared there only after the 44-day war. I remember that the Minister of Economy of the Republic of Armenia Vahan Kerobyan promised at the beginning of this year that by May the transport route linking India and Armenia via Iran would be operational. That is, in just five months all the problems with Armenia's lack of proper infrastructure should have been resolved and all other issues should have been settled. The issue of creating road and transport infrastructure had not been resolved for thirty years, but someone thought it possible to dot all the i's in just a few months. In January, Kerobyan expressed hope that in May Armenia would receive "the infrastructure we need." It is already July, and what was promised has not happened.

The main argument in favor of the Armenian transit, put forward by the Indians and Armenians, is that it is two days shorter than the Azerbaijani one. It seems that for them this is much more important than the lack of good roads and the ability to build them in Armenia. Well, let's go, as they say.