The deployment of Azeri troops in Nagorno-Karabakh on September 19 raised the specter of the Armenian genocide, a scar that forever disfigures European memory. Have we learned nothing from history? How long are Europeans going to turn a blind eye? Letting the politics of the worst happen is the worst kind of politics: the politics of brutality, of the fait accompli, of arbitrariness.

As these lines are being written, a people is being subjected, amidst general indifference, to violence and humiliation. A purge is underway. An independence is dying. Turning a blind eye to what is happening in Nagorno-Karabakh is not only morally wrong, it is also a tragic geopolitical error. Europe's indifference to what is happening in Nagorno-Karabakh is above all a sign of weakness, and a license for future aggression.

After the Russian offensive in Ukraine, we thought that Europe had finally taken the measure of its role. In the process, a lesson was learned: compromises, passive to varying degrees, with authoritarian regimes in the name of a so-called "realpolitik," but above all in the name of well-understood energy and economic interests, always come at a high price. It was said that, in the face of Moscow's power grab, the 27 had come together as never before, and that European diplomacy was entering a new era.

A few months later, Europe is witnessing a brutal invasion which, given that it was scheduled, was also sadly predictable. The continent is showing a distressingly pusillanimous attitude in the face of the atrocities being committed. Russia, presented to us as a stabilizing power in the region, is looking the other way. It has to be said that its resources are fully mobilized by the dirty colonial war it is waging in Ukraine, and that Vladimir Putin has a vested interest in appeasing Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for whom Turkey and Azerbaijan constitute "one nation, two states."

Back in July 2022, when all the signs were pointing to the worst, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen was all smiles in Baku alongside President Ilham Aliev. Even then, it was impossible to harbor the slightest illusion as to the nature of the regime he had installed nearly 20 years ago. But then, there were fears of a particularly harsh winter, and gas had to be found somewhere other than Russia. The deal was done: it was better to depend on Baku than on Moscow.

This position, already indefensible at the time, is even more so today, at a time when an unbearable exodus is underway.

You have 42.19% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.