Hello, would you agree to become allies with Armenia to remove Russia from Caucasus?

If I were Aliyev, I would recognize the rest of NK as Armenian territory without the Lachin corridor, and let Armenian soldiers take the place of Russian peacekeepers. I think the best case scenario for Azerbaiijan is to let NK become an Armenian exclave, like an Armenian version of Nakhchivan. It is majority Armenian and economically worthless anyways so I don't know why the small chance of one day "getting everything back" justifies the risk of hosting the Russian army. If you keep Lachin, Azerbaijani territory would still be cohesive without the rest of NK. And it is basically gifting an Achilles' heel to Armenia strategically speaking. But of course such a solution will never happen since giving up territory is a taboo nowadays. Which means Russian peacekeepers will stay there forever as a sword of Damocles. At some point in the future, maybe 100 days maybe 100 years, there will be circumstances that will threaten Russia's influence in Azerbaijan. Might be Azerbaiijan becoming a democratic country, a popular revolution or even a civil war in Iran: It can be anything to be honest, if you have forever as a time limit. When that happens Russians will just let Armenians conquer all of NK back and we will be back to the previous status quo or worse. The probability of this happening in the future is 1 without a peace treaty.

Moreover, when that day comes Turkey will not fight for Azerbaijan against Russia. Even if Turkey decided to intervene NATO would never let Turkey (or any other country) be the first striker against Russia. Hence Azerbaijani government should be realistic and take the Russian soldiers out of their country. Even the victors cannot get everything. No nationalist truely understands Atatürk in Turkey, because they never pay attention to how he tried to reach peace one way or another in every international issue concerning Turkey. He did this so that Turkish people can have some peace of mind. It is a good example how to build a successful country. We gave up Batumi and Mosul so that we can keep Izmir and Istanbul. This is the inconvenient fact and noone would say it as it is. Yet it is 100% true. Being a hardliner and demanding everything is always easy. The difficult thing is to decide what to give up and what to keep at all costs. You have to be clever, and aim for what makes sense. The rest of NK for eternal peace of mind is a really good deal. But I'm not sure Aliyev understands this...

/r/azerbaijan Thread