Armenia - untrustworthy partner for any nation globally Expert insights on Caliber.Az

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has once again shown his inadequacy by refusing a planned meeting with the President of Azerbaijan on the margins of the IV summit of the European Political Community in the UK. According to the Azerbaijani President’s Assistant, Head of the Foreign Policy Affairs Department of the Presidential Administration, Hikmet Hajiyev, Baku regards Armenia's refusal as a manifestation of its intention to move away from dialogue and promotion of the peace agenda. "Armenia talks about peace on different platforms, but at the same time refuses a meeting that serves to promote the peace agenda, which is perplexing. And the international community should give an assessment to the fact that Armenia refuses to use the opportunity for dialogue instead of using it," H. Hajiyev said.

 The Caliber.Az correspondent turned to foreign experts with a request to comment on Pashinyan’s inappropriate behaviour.

According to Russian political scientist and Eurasia expert Alexander Razuvaev, what happened was not a surprise to him, as Pashinyan is prone to making contradictory moves, the logic of which is difficult to understand.

"Basically, it proves that Armenia is not a reliable partner for any country worldwide. It is a kind of champion in disrupting negotiations. You never know what the next move will be. It is difficult to explain the situation exactly, but, in my opinion, Yerevan has started to feel that it has some new trump card, which means that it has an opportunity to be capricious again. All this only indicates that the negotiation track with Armenia is an extremely shaky environment, although no matter how Yerevan plays, it still ends up, as practice shows, scoring the ball only in its own gates," A. Razuvaev said.

Doctor of Military and Political Sciences, Professor, Georgian political scientist Vakhtang Maisaya believes that Pashinyan's refusal to meet in Britain indicates that he wants to buy time, take time out to deal with the internal political situation in Armenia.

"The tension built up by Pashinyan's opponents, the opposition's intensified attacks on the prime minister, linked mainly to his desire to change the country's constitution, give him virtually no room for manoeuvre. In order to stay in power, he cannot act actively and promote his agenda.

On the other hand, apparently, Pashinyan is also under pressure from Moscow, demanding that Pashinyan's position on a whole range of issues change. All this led to Pashinyan's decision to do nothing at all, although a direct refusal to meet, of course, does not look very diplomatic and caused a predictable reaction from Baku. However, in my opinion, this is really a time-out and not an attempt to suspend the negotiation process altogether; Pashinyan will return to dialogue when he understands that he is ready to discuss and promise something," Maisaya concluded.