Armenia wants to sign a final peace that has not been fully agreed upon, in order to at least secure itself against issues such as territorial integrity, non-use of force and war agenda. This rush is clearly felt in the speeches of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
Nikol Pashinyan’s speech at the Yerevan Dialogue international conference is his failed attempt to present himself to the world as a “dove of peace.” Armenian logic is a mechanism that works by completely different rules, especially in controversial times. However, it is not the 80s and 90s of the last century when Pashinyan’s “arguments” are believed, nor can Armenia afford to prolong the final peace agreement. Azerbaijan returned its lands by force, won them on the battlefield, and made Pashinyan himself sign the capitulation act. The desire of the defeated side to dictate something at the negotiating table, or an attempt to imitate it, is simply a waste of time. Time does not stand still. Today it is Armenia and the Armenian people who lost it.
“Caspian” The newspaper published an article on the subject.
In a hurry, he falls into the hallway.
By trying to evade the obligations of the November 10, 2020 declaration, Pashinyan has turned his country into a battlefield for the superpowers. If until now Armenia was under the complete control of Moscow, now there is Iran, which wants to “fish in murky waters,” Russia, which does not want to leave the region, and the collective West, which wants to push both of them out of Armenia. Stuck in the Zangezur impasse, Pashinyan began to understand that different sponsors have contradictory orders. If Iran considers Zangazur a “red line,” the West has begun to understand the global importance of the corridor for trade with the East, but does not want it to be under Russian control. Russia and Azerbaijan demand compliance with the commitment regarding the Zangezur Corridor reflected in paragraph 9 of the November 10 declaration. Turkey also speaks on behalf of Azerbaijan. This knot must be untied or alternative methods must be used to untangle it.
It is from this perspective that Armenia wants to sign a final peace that is not fully agreed upon, in order to at least secure itself against such points as territorial integrity, non-use of force and the war agenda. This haste is clearly seen in Pashinyan’s speech: “Either we ourselves are guarantors of our security, or there is no other guarantor. Since we are guarantors, we simply play the role of a small amount of money for them. We have to solve our own affairs.” Translated from political language, the Prime Minister of Armenia means: “We should put our hats on and think.”
An unfinished deal
Speaking at the Iran Dialogue, Pashinyan said that the peace agreement with Azerbaijan on the agenda consists of 16 points, and 13 of them have been fully agreed upon. Therefore, he proposes that the Azerbaijani side sign an agreement containing the sum of these 13 points in the near future, so that work can continue on the remaining three points. According to Pashinyan’s speech to the conference participants, there has never been an agreement in the history of the world that covers all the problems of the spectrum. The Armenian leader believes that in order to resolve the outstanding problems in the future, it is necessary to speed up the signing of the agreement, because then there will not be such a favorable situation as the current one.
It is not a difficult task to reverse Pashinyan’s timid “arguments” that he wants to cover up the mixture of Armenian political inexperience and cunning with a “peace agenda.” Throughout history, thousands of post-war agreements have been concluded that were more specific than the 13+3-point draft agreement proposed by Yerevan. The peculiarity of the agreements is that they cover the whole range of comparative points and at the same time are specific and concise. Without going too far, let us take the November 10 statement. Do the nine points of the document not fully reflect the new reality created by the outcome of the war? Does the proposal, which has been seriously worked on in recent years and is on the agenda in the current 13+3 format, not meet the requirements of that nine-point statement? What kind of new agreement can he talk about when he has renounced the requirements of the document he signed as a loser four years ago? If he does not comply with the clauses of the declaration he signed, or if he has to do so by force, who can guarantee that he will continue to work to solve those three remaining problems?
13 are known, but three?
Although Pashinyan said in his speech that they have agreed on 13 points and that the remaining three can be worked on after the signing of the peace agreement, he did not address the points of disagreement. However, simple logic says that at least two of them include the Zangezur Corridor and constitutional change.
The opening of the Zanegazur Corridor is reflected in paragraph 9 of the November 10 statement, which Armenia has refused to implement for the past four years. Now Pashinyan is suggesting that we keep my commitment, which I did not fulfill for four years, after the signing of the final peace agreement. Perhaps Pashinyan himself believed what he said with Armenian logic. However, in the history of the world that he cited as an example, there has never been a case when the victorious side signed a peace agreement prepared with the consent of the defeated.
The second of three numbers.
The second of the three unresolved issues is probably related to the Armenian Constitution. Territorial claims against Azerbaijan remain in the declaration of independence as part of the main law. In the political landscape of Armenia, especially in the opposition camp, there are tens of thousands of revanchists who live with the dream of “returning Artsakh.” If they come to power tomorrow, or if they win certain votes in parliament and are represented in the government coalition, who will guarantee that they will not make a “constitutional demand”?
There was a time when Kocharyan and Sargsyan insisted on solving the Karabakh problem as a package, and the “red line” for them was “independence” from the separatists. Even if they see what this stubbornness leads to, they do not want to get out of the quagmire they have fallen into. The Armenian government, especially Pashinyan, should understand that it is important for them to sign the agreement in full, in a revised version that reflects all the problems.
