AZE.US
Azerbaijan should continue the peace agenda with Armenia, but must not assume that the old risks have disappeared, political analyst Ramiz Yunus said in an interview with Caliber.Az.
Yunus said Armenia’s current leadership moved toward peace with Azerbaijan not out of goodwill, but because of the new regional reality created after Azerbaijan restored its territorial integrity and sovereignty.
According to him, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan may now speak about peace and a “new republic,” but that does not mean revanchist thinking inside Armenian society has been overcome.
Yunus said a large part of Armenian society still struggles to accept the results of the war and the collapse of the old political formula built around territorial claims against Azerbaijan.
The analyst argued that Armenia has not yet gone through a deep internal reassessment of its past policies. He compared that process to postwar reckoning in other societies, saying real change requires time, institutions and a generational shift.
Yunus also pointed to recent anti-Azerbaijani resolutions in the parliaments of Belgium and the Netherlands, saying they show that old Armenia-centered networks in the West remain active.
In his view, such initiatives may not always serve the interests of the current Armenian government, especially if Yerevan is trying to move toward a peace agreement. But their appearance, he said, shows that the external infrastructure once used to pressure Azerbaijan has not disappeared.
Yunus said Baku should use its political and diplomatic leverage to prevent Armenia from returning to its old policy of territorial claims and confrontation.
He stressed that Azerbaijan supports peace, but should not build its strategy on unchecked trust.
The analyst said the principle should be simple: trust, but verify. In his view, Baku must remain politically, militarily and informationally prepared for different scenarios.
Yunus also argued that the topics of Goycha and Zangezur should remain in Azerbaijan’s political discourse as a reminder to Yerevan of the cost of revanchism.
According to him, Armenia should understand that any attempt to revive territorial claims against Azerbaijan could create serious consequences for its own statehood.
Yunus said Azerbaijan is now in a much stronger position than in the early years of independence. After 2020, and especially after the restoration of full sovereignty over its territories, Baku no longer reacts to external pressure in the same way, he said.
Instead, Azerbaijan is increasingly shaping the rules of the game in the region.
For Yunus, peace with Armenia is possible only if it is based on a clear acceptance of the new realities. He said diplomacy should continue, but strategic caution should remain at the center of Baku’s approach.
AZE.US