/ world today news/ Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan hid his political face for a long time, but recently it has become increasingly difficult for him to do so. The 2018 “Velvet Revolution” frontman hasn’t shown much affection for the “pro-Russian orientation” despite receiving a lot of help from Moscow. And now, it seems, Yerevan has taken the path of confrontation.
On March 24 (a week after the scandalous order for the Russian president was reported), the Constitutional Court of Armenia recognized the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, paving the way for parliamentary ratification of the Rome Statute.
As the Telegram channel “Armenian Vendetta” writes, such a “coincidence” looks very suspicious and suggests its politicization. At the same time, deputy from the governing party “Civil Contract” Gagik Melkonyan stated that after the ratification of the Rome Statute by Yerevan, in case of arrival in Armenia, the president of Russia should be arrested.
References to the need to conduct legal cases against Azerbaijan through the ICC do not seem convincing and have been categorically refuted by many experts, including Armenian. In addition, Pashinyan took part in Biden’s “Democracy Summit” and supported her final declaration. True, in Yerevan they assure that they did not sign its “pro-Ukrainian” clauses, but in general this is not so important.
At the same time, Armenia formally remains an ally of Russia and is a member of the CSTO and EAEU. The historical ties between the two countries are under threat. The latent change of the geopolitical vector, which began under the third president Serzh Sargsyan, in recent years and especially months has acquired a clearly more distinct character, which cannot be hidden by any statements and propaganda tricks. Sometimes one gets the impression that the current Armenian authorities successively “bridges are burning” connecting the small Caucasian state with Russia.
Of course, this provokes a negative reaction from Moscow. The Russian Foreign Ministry warned through the TASS agency that it considers absolutely unacceptable Yerevan’s plans to join the Rome Statute of the ICC, which are filled with “extremely negative consequences” for bilateral relations.
Although a few days later the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, stated that this apparently toxic topic was the subject of discussion during contacts at the highest level. Without disclosing details of the negotiations, she expressed hope for a settlement “this conspiracy in an allied and mutually agreeable manner” .
For his part, Hakop Arshakyan, the deputy speaker of the Armenian Parliament from “Civil Contract”, proposed to sign some kind of separate agreement between Moscow and Yerevan so that the decisions of the ICC do not affect Russian-Armenian relations.
For careful observers, the foreign policy priorities of Pashinyan and his team, composed for the most part of people from various non-governmental organizations (it is enough to mention at least the secretary of the National Security Council Armen Grigoryan), have never been much of a secret. It’s just that for now they were masked with the rhetoric of “multi-vectorness”.
Moscow does not lose hope for constructive interaction, following the well-known tradition of working with the current government, which has shown its cunning, resourcefulness and sophistication against the background of a weak and fragmented opposition, succumbing to the administrative-police, political-economic and information-manipulative forms of pressure. We remind you that after the extraordinary parliamentary elections of June 2021, the pro-Pashinyan Party “Civil Contract” has a stable majority in the National Assembly /71 seats out of 120/.
At the “Democracy Summit” (March 28-30, Washington), the military captain did not hold back in complimenting the United States and its Western partners, saying that in 2020 it was the West that saved Armenia during the military conflict with Azerbaijan. In fact, it was quite the opposite! The Armenian side managed to avoid a devastating defeat by losing the entire territory of Nagorno-Karabakh with Stepanakert only thanks to Vladimir Putin and the Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh.
„I said that Pashinyan should sign the act of surrender live… But Russian President Vladimir Putin asked me not to insist on this issue,” said Ilham Aliyev after the signing of the tripartite statement on November 10, 2020.
In the first days and weeks after these events, Pashinyan’s authority fell to a very low level, but they helped him stay in charge. Otherwise, the varshapet would not only have to give up his high post, but at least leave the country. And now he makes claims to Russia, which alone (in difficult interaction with Baku) must ensure the security of the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh, with the complete indifference of official Yerevan. And what will happen after 2025, when the 5-year term of the peacekeeping mission expires?
Pashinyan can enter the “European” platform for negotiations with Baku only by distancing himself from Russia and the format proposed by it (meetings of the deputy prime ministers of the three countries, which have not been held for a long time). Let’s say, in this case, the West promised to influence Baku in favor of Armenia (???) One way or another, while all the attention of the NATO / EU countries is focused on the confrontation with Russia, it is out of their hands to deal with an insignificant problem for them.
By sending an armed “observation” mission to Armenia’s eastern border, Brussels made it clear that it would not impose sanctions on Azerbaijan, suggesting that Baku and Yerevan should focus on dialogue, that is, continue to do what both sides have long failed to do to do.
The West is unlikely to put pressure on Azerbaijan, and because oil and gas now flow from the shores of the Caspian Sea along the “Southern Gas Corridor” to the Balkans and Italy, replacing, albeit to an extremely small extent, the Russian energy carriers now lost to the folly of the sanctions.
After the victorious military campaign of 2020, Aliyev feels confident and apparently will not make any concessions. Disturbing rumors of an impending military escalation have been circulating in recent weeks as the bulk of the Azerbaijani army has been moved to the borders of Armenia and the “Armenian” part of Karabakh guarded by Russian peacekeepers.
Yerevan seems to be hoping not only for heartfelt tweets from Macron or Blinken, but also for help from Tehran, which is unhappy with the possible emergence of a “no-go zone” in the form of an extraterritorial “Zangezur Corridor” on a small stretch of the border with Armenia along the Araxes.
In recent days, information was received about the concentration of units of the IRGC with armored vehicles in the northwestern border regions. Iran has a serious conflict with Israel, to some extent it is also present in Azerbaijan, as officials in Tehran periodically state.
How and in whose favor this military-political puzzle will be solved in the medium term is not clear. Only one thing is clear – Armenia’s position is unstable and unreliable. The former editor of a yellow newspaper and especially his advisers have chosen a path that can be very risky. There is no secret talk about the possible exit of Armenia from the CSTO, and there probably also from the EAEU, contrary to the economic interests of the state and its citizens.
Will Yerevan dare to question the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance with the Russian Federation concluded in 1997? If this happens (nothing is excluded in the current situation), then after the Nagorno-Karabakh peacekeepers, whose mandate expires in 2025, the Russian military may leave Gyumri and Yerevan, and this is fraught with serious upheavals in the Caucasus.
It became known that from April 5, Russian regulatory authorities will not release Armenian dairy products in Russia. The share of Armenian “milk” in the Russian market is not so large, but for Armenian producers this is a serious problem. The rupture of relations with Russia seriously threatens Armenia’s economy, which is based on cheap energy from the Russian Federation.
When this flow dries up, the prices of gas, oil, gasoline, diesel will skyrocket. As a result, there will be a massive increase in all prices and a drop in the standard of living of the population, which threatens with serious complications.
Who will help Armenia then? It is even difficult to imagine – the republic is surrounded by enemy states. Baku will gladly take advantage of the growing difficulties of its long-time adversary and demand, for example, the return to the territory of the former Armenian SSR of the refugees who left it in 1988-1991 and their descendants. And that’s not all…
Armenia is only trying to improve its relations with Turkey after many decades of enmity, and of course there is no support from Ankara. Friendly Iran is nearby, but this country is under pressure from many internal and external problems…
In Armenia itself, opinions are divided. There are enough people who approve of the drift of the republic to the West. But there are many who see danger in changing political course. Among them is Andranik Tevanyan, MP from the “Armenia” faction: “Ilham Aliyev is exasperated by the fact that Armenian-Russian relations are deteriorating again and anti-Russian hysteria is unfolding in Armenia at the level of the first person…”
The Union of Armenians of Russia expressed hope that the Armenian Parliament will remember the interests of its citizens and the three million Armenian community in the Russian Federation, which “for decades it has provided significant assistance to the population of the republic”. However, relations between Armenian authorities and Russian diaspora organizations have been purposefully strained recently following the 2018 “Velvet Revolution”.
According to “Armenian Vendetta” with its decisions and statements the Armenian authorities themselves are shooting themselves in the foot “to the Armenian people, who are offered to hope for the dim prospects of “international condemnation and prosecution of Azerbaijan”, finding themselves alone in the face of the threat of a new conflict”.
And in the former ruling Republican Party, the decision of the Armenian authorities is considered to be “extreme political blindness, fraught with unpredictable consequences” . And however you feel about this political force that contributed by its actions and inaction to the “velvet” coup of 2018, in this case it is hard not to agree with it.
Translation: EU
Subscribe to our YouTube channel:
and for the channel or in Telegram:
#Armenia #turning #Russia #bowing #West
