News - Any revision of the Trump Path project is an expensive gift to Aliyev.

At the end of 2006, the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, from the podium of an international conference in Germany, announced that soon his country's military expenditures would equal Armenia's total state budget and added that with such a balance of power, 'the events could develop along a different scenario'. That was the period when mediators were discussing with the parties the option of resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh problem through a 'postponed referendum', which later came to be known as the Madrid Principles. Tatul Hakobyan, 'with a fresh mind over bitter coffee', muses that as long as Artsakh and the adjacent territories existed, Azerbaijan had a desire to negotiate; today Artsakh and the adjacent territories do not exist, and Azerbaijan has no desire to negotiate. In fact, Azerbaijan has never regarded internationally recognized territories as a subject of diplomatic 'trade'; the discourse has been one: 'we will not give up a part of our land', i.e., 'we won't give Armenians Nagorno-Karabakh's surrounding territories in exchange for getting it'. Those who were once misled or perhaps sincerely believed that Azerbaijan's adjacent-to-Artsakh districts would be liberated so that, as the Turks and Russians say, 'bash-na-bash' would be exchanged for Artsakh, must admit that they were badly deceived, misled, or overestimated their own capabilities. And in the current discourse one should exclude the rhetoric of 'giving something in exchange for getting something', because that déjà vu would push Armenia into a new and more dangerous dead end. Moreover, parallel to this, the 'Trump's Path' project is spreading the idea of the need for revision. Apparently, the opposition is developing, a propaganda machine, that the Washington agreements are 'necessary, but not sufficient conditions for peace; with good negotiations one could obtain more' — and that will be its election trump card. This is almost the same as what was said about the Madrid principles: 'Yes, it's good, but you can get more.' 'More' would have meant a disastrous war. And any form of revision of the 'Trump's Path' project would be very costly; it would be a gift to Aliyev to realize Azerbaijan's national ambitions. Noyan's Tomb - What does the press write Read