Harut Sassounian
BY HARUT SASSOUNIAN
The world woke up last Saturday morning to the drumbeats of war from a large-scale assault by Azerbaijan on tiny Artsakh (Karabakh).
This was not a surprise attack! For many years, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev has had the nasty habit of launching military attacks on the Republics of Armenia and Artsakh whenever international peace talks or Summit Meetings were being held.
Even a casual observer of this long-running conflict could have guessed that Azerbaijan would launch yet another attack during last weekend’s Nuclear Security Summit hosted by Pres. Obama and attended by 50 heads of state, including Presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey. Some observers were surprised by the large scale of the Azeri attack which involved tanks, helicopters, missiles, and drones. In fact, the scope of the assault should not have come as a surprise, given Azerbaijan’s technological escalation of aggression in recent years. Aliyev’s sinister practice of timing military attacks with peace talks or international conferences reflects his intensive efforts to keep the Artsakh conflict as a burning issue at all cost.
Certainly, Pres. Aliyev is increasingly frustrated by his inability to intimidate Armenians into giving up the territory of Artsakh despite Azerbaijan’s purchase of multi-billion dollars of modern weaponry. Aliyev is also distressed by his failure to use his country’s vast oil and gas resources as an inducement to pressure world leaders into supporting Azerbaijan in the Artsakh conflict. As a result, the Baku dictator has wasted huge amounts of his country’s wealth to bribe foreign officials and purchase expensive but ineffective weapons.
Furthermore, as Azerbaijan’s father and son Presidential Dynasty, the Aliyevs have persistently threatened to attack and “liberate the occupied territories of Karabakhâ€
