Concerned over the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process, the Azerbaijani authorities have decided to once more perform their favorite painfully primitive trick. Today a number of Opposition political forces, which have no influence on the country’s political life, have announced their intention to hold rallies in Baku this September, to protest the Madrid Principles.

The leaders of the National Salvation Party of Azerbaijan and of the Popular Front of Azerbaijan arranged about an action of protest against the Madrid Principles, which run counter to Azerbaijan’s national interests.

Since rallies are most rare events in authoritarian Azerbaijan, it is obvious that an action will by no means be held in the center of Baku without being sanctioned by the authorities and by President Ilham Aliyev personally. All the opposition parties’ initiatives to hold any mass actions in the center of Baku were formerly nipped in the bud, and the opponents of the Aliyev clan had at best to be content with the most “uncomfortable” conditions on the outskirts of the city. The fact that the Government-controlled advertised the two small parties’ initiative proves that it was approved by the authorities.

The Azerbaijani authorities have lately been showing a gradual tendency toward declining the Madrid Principles – in an indirect way. President Aliyev’s rather strange statement last weekend was the first presage. Speaking of the present state of the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process, Aliyev expressed the confidence that the problem will be resolved within Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. That step was as unconstructive as it could be just before the end of the August interval and on the threshold of an active stage of the preparations for the two Presidents’ meeting.

No doubt, President Aliyev is well aware of the possible consequences, namely: the stronger positions of the forces that have for a long time been objecting to the Madrid Principles in Armenia and consider any territorial concessions to Azerbaijan inadmissible. What else does official Baku need for if not for concealing its own unconstructive approaches, torpedoing the negotiations, which are not following a course favored by Azerbaijan. In this context, one is not surprised at the reports on the Opposition-planned rallies just a couple of days after Aliyev’s statement. These tendencies should be expected to grow stronger and stronger in Azerbaijan as the Sargsyan-Aliyev meeting is drawing closer.