Armenian PM's hard choice
Emin Qalaly’s thoughts

ANALYTICS  20 April 2022 - 20:48

It is true that God’s ways are inscrutable! If someone had tried to convince Azerbaijanis a couple of years ago that most of them would understand another Armenian prime minister and even sympathized with him, this person would have been urgently sent to a mental hospital especially after Nikol Pashinyan [we mean him here] danced in the Jidir Plain, proclaimed Karabakh's belonging to Armenia and actively supported the transfer of the so-called parliament of the so-called "Artsakh" to Shusha.

Have you forgotten? Let me remind you. The "great creators" made a shitty, sorry, fateful decision to transfer the building of the "national assembly" of the most legitimate and most recognized country in the world (guess which one) to Shusha. A man named Araik (hiccuping parrot Ara or stuttering flightless Icarus?) announced grandiose plans.

“Great efforts are being made to restore Shusha’s former glory,” Araik said. “I have visited the fortress city, focusing on the active continuation of the large-scale construction programs that have been launched.”

I would be glad to tell you what Araik must focus on however I do not dare to say due to the good manners and vigilance of Caliber.Аz news agency editor-in-chief.
Azerbaijani people, army and president did not allow Harutyunyan and Pashinyan (these plans were made upon their consent) to continue swearing.

I have no illusions about who Pashinyan is, what kind of person he is and what he would do today if it were not for the iron will and diplomatic abilities of the Azerbaijani leadership, along with the support of the Azerbaijani people.

Pashinyan is the leader of a country that is very antagonistic towards Azerbaijan and which held Azerbaijani lands under occupation for 30 years, killed Azerbaijani citizens and preached the ideas of racial superiority and ethnic incompatibility of Armenians and Azerbaijanis. But if we assume that for a number of reasons, he wants to change the situation, we have an interesting puzzle. 

Pashinyan became the first of the current Armenian leaders who faced all the unpleasant consequences after a riotous feast. Armenian ex-president Levon Ter-Petrosyan began to realize the whole situation, for which he was expelled from power. When other Armenian ex-presidents Kocharyan and Sargsyan came to power, they let everybody know that they are kings of the gods.

They created several myths, which almost all Armenians believed. Which ones? Didn't you know that Armenians are the best warriors, diplomats, businessmen, scientists, and so on? Of course, they are also the most ancient ones. I don't know whether they are ancient, however, it is obvious that the date of these tales has expired, and only Yerevan’s housewives and the activists of the Tigran-Garegin Nzhdeh party believe them.

Pashinyan himself realized the whole situation before September 2020. The international community has previously hinted to Armenia about the failure of its negotiating position.

When the "great diplomats" did not understand the hints, the partners resorted to more transparent methods. However, it didn't work. Then Pashinyan faced 44 days of active therapy, Azerbaijan’s firm hands, rounds of Pashinyan’s fruitless lamentation ("Help me!!!") and statements made by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev (What happened, Pashinyan?).

Even though Pashinyan sometimes tries to act upon the "One step forward - two steps back" principle, his essence as an Armenian convinced of his infallible rightness sometimes triumphs, and he has not given up trying to delay certain processes, Pashinyan seems to have understood something. Not to have problems, Pashinyan must stop trying to occupy other countries’ territories and must ignore the mind, along with international law.

Narcologists know what withdrawal syndrome is, which we all know as drug/alcohol withdrawal. This is a disorder due to the forced or voluntary withdrawal of taking narcotic substances (or alcohol, as we were talking about firm hands).

In this case, the entire Armenian people are going through withdrawal. Some people fail. These are "patriots" who are still participating in the processions, yelling "help, the Turks are coming!", calling for the protection of the "holy land of Artsakh" at any cost, accusing everyone and everything, rather than themselves, of the deep crisis in which Armenia finds itself now.

However, there is reason to think that a considerable part of the Armenian society realized the futility of the path they chose in the late 1980s - early 1990s. The euphoria as a result of victory in the first Armenia-Azerbaijan Karabakh War and aggressive hatred is disappearing. I am talking about aggressive hatred.

Many Armenians see the results of 2020 and understand the balance of power both in the region and in the world. They see that the Azerbaijanis, who have regained their lands, behave as true owners. They revive these lands rather than turn them into huge wastelands.

They see that international organizations are intensively working with Baku on this issue. They begin to understand the benefit of normalizing relations. This does not refer to those to whom they desire to kill Turks (or at least dream about it) is more important than the opportunity to give at least some hope for the future to their own children.

Pashinyan involuntarily became the main narcologist of Armenians, including violent ones who do not want to be treated and strive to hit the doctor or even break the skull of patients. He's in an unenviable position because on the one hand, there are realities of the situation and the lack of resources for a permanent confrontation with Azerbaijan, which has made it clear that its patience is not unlimited.

On the other hand, there is a welter of ancient prejudices and tragic disappointment of Armenians, along with a group of political opponents in Armenia itself, I would even say political enemies who dream of turning the above-mentioned situation into a wave capable of returning them to power.

Even Pashinyan's recent visit to Moscow has become an illustration of the trap into which the Armenian authorities have driven themselves. The Russian Federation is an important partner of Azerbaijan and relations with this country, which has an indisputable weight in the region, are valuable for us.

Those who immediately begin to argue, foreshadowing a change in the balance of power, must not rush. We are talking about the current situation. Time will tell what will happen in the future. So, Russia is important to us, and this is an objective reality. However, the fact that Russia crossed the line and its actions in Ukraine set it against the whole world is obvious.

A trip to Moscow in such conditions, and in particular, an invitation for Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit Yerevan this year (such invitations are usually made earlier, even if we assume that the Russian president will fly to Armenia in December 2022, he was invited just 7 months before the visit, which is insufficient) demonstrate that the Armenian prime minister is in a desperate situation.

Of course, we can talk about parity between the EU and Russia in the context of the settlement of the situation in Karabakh, however such actions during the war in Ukraine are perceived quite differently and not only by us.

Before Pashinyan, the president of Belarus (everything is clear here) and the president of Austria met with the Russian leader. The president of Austria looked more like a herald from the West, who arrived to deliver an unpleasant message. Let me remind you that the Azerbaijani president was criticized by some schemers for a trip to Moscow a couple of days before the beginning of the war.

Armenia chose time much worse. Moreover, the Azerbaijani president’s visit and the documents signed during his visit brought nothing except for confidence-building measures with all interested parties.

Azerbaijan, as is known, is facing a huge problem related to mines. This issue is not relevant in Armenia. We have not seized the territory of this country and we have not planted mines there. However, Pashinyan today, like no one else, must know that the sapper is wrong once.

A sapper is walking through a minefield. Every wrong move can lead to severe consequences. Pashinyan’s actions turned out to be extremely hard as opposed to the actions made by Armenian warlords in the occupied regions of Azerbaijan when they were using soldiers as peasant farmers [who planted mines] and were pocketing the money earned for this process. However, those actions turned out to be bloody both for the commanders and for Armenia as a whole.

What will Pashinyan choose and whether he will be allowed to make this choice? Time will show. We can only wait and hope that Armenia will choose peace and development.

However, we must be ready to join this work and speed up the processes in case of necessity. We love the land, and we also know how to work on it, which we showed in autumn 2020. We even have UAVs for this process.

However, it's still better to avoid a new battle.

Caliber.Az