Armenia plays all its cards ahead of Brussels meeting

On the eve of the meeting of Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders in Brussels, the Armenian side is preparing the basis for negotiations in its own way, in fact trying its best to slow down the process. And some of the "powers" to disrupt the negotiations have been distributed to the fake president of a non-existent entity Arayik Harutyunyan.

At the start of the week, Arayik Harutyunyan did his usual thing - he wrote a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin. We wouldn't want to get too distracted by the actions of the provincial bandit; however, this letter deserves some attention as a phenomenon reflecting the state of the Armenian political "elite”.

As the Armenian media writes, "the letter is written correctly, but with rather harsh wording.” The full text of the correspondence is not publicly available, but fragments published by the Armenian media can confirm that the letter is not only harsh but even ultimatum-like.

In the letter, Harutyunyan calls on the Russian leader to give an answer as soon as possible as to what exactly the Russians are going to do in Karabakh. And if they (the Russians) "are not going to control the situation and open the road," they (the "authorities" of the phantom entity) demand that Putin informs them of this in order to decide what to do next.

It is difficult to say whether this step was coordinated with Moscow or was a cry of despair from Harutyunyan. Nevertheless, it is quite possible that even if Putin gave the go-ahead for him to make some requests, he hardly foresaw that he would be approached in such a tone. It seems that the local under-politician was so excited by the experience of the rebellious Prigozhin, that he completely forgot about the ancient proverb: "What is permissible for Jupiter is not permissible for cows".

Harutyunyan's epistolary efforts have most likely annoyed the Kremlin, which Moscow did not fail to inform Yerevan about. In any case, Prime Minister Pashinyan rushed to call the Russian president on July 6. According to Radio Liberty's Armenian Bureau, he did so at Harutyunyan's request. Gathering his entourage, he discussed the results of Pashinyan and Putin's phone conversation. There is no doubt that Harutyunyan is trying to put a good face on a bad game. It would be more logical to suppose that it was Moscow that forced Pashinyan to dial the Kremlin to smooth over the embarrassment of the provincial "strategist's" irreverent behaviour.

The Kremlin press service reported that in his conversation with Pashinyan, Putin "confirmed Moscow's readiness to continue assisting in the drafting of an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty.” Evidently, there was no clear reaction from Moscow to Harutyunyan’s cry of despair.

In fact, it couldn’t have gone any other way. Moscow has no legal grounds to challenge Azerbaijan's restoration of its sovereignty over the part of the Karabakh region that is under the temporary control zone of the Russian peacekeeping contingent. And the strengthening of the country both in military-political aspect and in terms of international prestige does not imply the possibility for anyone to obstruct its just activities on the ground.

Nevertheless, on July 6 at a meeting of his government, Pashinyan again made a "whiny" package of false statements. Their essence is that the Lachin road is closed, people (of Armenian nationality) have nothing to eat in Karabakh, and most importantly, there are no Armenian armed forces there. And this is despite the fact that a few days ago Yerevan received and already buried the bodies of Armenian soldiers killed by the Azerbaijani army in the direction of Aghdam in Yerablur.

Curiously, this time Pashinyan tried to "defend the honour" of France, strongly denying accusations of racist policies by Baku. And at the same time, he once again expressed his resentment for the "corridor" logic of Baku's Zangezur agenda.

"I am forced to repeat that Armenia has never taken corridor commitments anywhere, neither in writing nor orally, and will never accept such comments," Pashinyan remarked as if continuing the Moscow polemic with Ilham Aliyev five weeks ago.

However, the very fact that Yerevan reacts so sharply to the Zangazur issue shows that Baku has long ago managed to impose its own algorithm of negotiation duel, raising one acute issue after another, forcing it to dash back and forth before delivering a decisive blow to the jaw.

In general, we can say that Yerevan is unable to form a competitive agenda for the negotiations - it just walks around with hackneyed theses that no one cares about anymore. The "lyrical digression" with the defence of France is also evidence of the lack of content of the Armenian agenda and the desire to fill it with something.

The following phrase of the Armenian Prime Minister is noteworthy:

"Armenia, in its turn, expressing gratitude to France, should take all measures to have more countries and international organisations make targeted assessments of the humanitarian crisis established in Nagorno-Karabakh".

The latter indirectly acknowledged the fact that the world community, in general, supports the principles of peaceful settlement put forward by Baku and calls on Yerevan to fulfil them.

And the "tricky" move with the letter to Putin, as noted above, could not end with anything but a fiasco. Anyway, if Harutyunyan is so impatient to develop his epistolary muscles, let him practice his letters not to Moscow but to Baku. And not with questions, but with a plea for forgiveness. And they must be dated backwards, not today, because more than a month has passed after the ultimatum of President Aliev, given to him in Lachin...