During the joint press conference with the OSCE CiO Eamon Gilmore, foreign minister of Azerbaijan Elmar Mammedyarov stated that if Armenia wants its soldiers not to get killed by their snipers, it should end “occupation” of their territories.
Actually, the Azerbaijani foreign minister confirmed or proved that official Baku is well-aware of violations of the cease-fire at the line of contact and the official Baku claims responsibility for those incidents.
It is not known what Eamon Gilmore responded to this statement of the Azeri top official but we know that he reiterated the need to respect the truce. But Gilmore and a lot of other European officials have said the same thing a million times, while Azerbaijan has always been frank, even in the presence of Gilmore, thus slapping the OSCE CiO and OSCE in the face.
The point is that at various levels, OSCE, without giving concrete names, keeps stating that the parties to the conflict should respect the ceasefire regime, while Azerbaijan actually says: “I am doing good to kill the Armenian soldiers and I’ll keep killing them so far”, then this is nothing else but Azerbaijan’s diplomatic slap to OSCE.
It is not important what OSCE or the Minsk Group answer Azerbaijan behind the stage. It is not ruled out that after the press conference Gilmore pulled Mammedyarov’s ear. But this means nothing because in public Elmar pulled Eamon’s ear. In order to avoid this, the OSCE chairman should have given a concrete and immediate answer to Baku.
Here the issue is not to ensure moral victory for Armenia or to feel consoled or satisfied. Sure, the situation is not unequivocal, the diplomacy dictates its own rules which can’t match Armenia’s wishes always. But this is a matter of OSCE’s international reputation which is slapped by Azerbaijan.
On the other hand, the OSCE reputation is already low and its semi-official affirmation came in Astana Summit when it proved unable to come to terms and sign a document which was ignored by the presidents of important states.
If the organization is no longer a significant player in the world, then it should leave the arena. This will both reduce costs of international diplomacy, especially in times of global crisis, and Azerbaijan and states like it will be deprived of the possibility to squash the prestige of world policy.
It is evident that the international community is now seeking a new order or regime in world politics or geopolitics and it actually acknowledges indirectly that the greater part of organizations of old type are non-viable in front of new realities. But this search is complicated by their activities as an end in itself, and their so-called bureaucratic part is evidently interested in disturbing water in the paddle and conserve this situation longer because it is unknown how many and what seats it will have under the new order.
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