Armenia’s military alliances deepen with France, India, and Greece Azerbaijan ready for retaliation

The Armenian leadership continues to desperately seek new partners for arms supplies to Yerevan. Currently, the main arms suppliers to Armenia are France and India, but recently the country signed a trilateral military cooperation program with Greece and the Republic of Cyprus. In 2023, during the visit of Armenian Defence Minister Suren Papikyan to Athens, an agreement on military-technical cooperation was signed between the two countries. Later that year, Greek Cyprus joined this agreement.

The Armenia-Greece military agreement has significantly intensified relations between the two countries. Following Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's visit to Athens in February of this year, Greek Defence Minister Nikolaos Dendias visited Yerevan. During his visit, Dendias stated that Athens does not rule out joint activities with France and India in providing military support to Armenia, and he also did not dismiss the possibility of establishing a multilateral military cooperation framework involving Armenia, France, Greece, Cyprus, and India.

"We have created successful trilateral defence cooperation between Armenia, Greece, and Cyprus. But there can be other trilateral or quadrilateral relationships – with France and India, with important countries, major powers, very influential common friends of Armenia and Greece," Dendias said during a joint press conference with Papikyan, effectively proposing the idea of a four-nation military alliance.

Therefore, it can be said that the emergence of new arms suppliers will further intensify the militarisation of Armenia in the future. Earlier this year, Armenian Defence Minister Suren Papikyan, in an interview with Public Television, stated that "Armenia has made significant progress in the procurement of weapons." "In this process, we have also gained new partners at the level of major superpowers and other friendly countries. This includes France and India, but there are also other partners that I do not wish to name just yet," said Papikyan then.

These statements confirm that, despite the false claims from the Armenian side about being ready for peace, Yerevan is actively arming itself and harbouring revisionist plans.

Moreover, it seems that Yerevan is overlooking the fact that every arms exporter to Armenia primarily pursues its own interests in this strategically important region. For instance, France arms Armenia mainly to further its own objectives in the South Caucasus, especially following the humiliating failure of Paris's policies in African countries. Similarly, India, by arming Armenia, is pursuing its own geopolitical goals in the region, aiming to counter Pakistan and expand its access to European and Eurasian markets. At the same time, India is strengthening military cooperation with Greece, which has significant disagreements with Türkiye.

During Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's one-day official visit to Athens in August 2023, Indian media reported that this event would serve as "an important signal to Türkiye, which supports Pakistan’s interests on the Kashmir issue." At the same time, the Financial Express newspaper reported on India's plans to create a new power centre involving Armenia and Greece, as an alternative to the Türkiye-Pakistan-Azerbaijan alliance.

As for Greece, the Greek portal Enikos recently reported that Athens could transfer S-300 systems and two other Russian-made weapon systems to Armenia. Overall, the militarisation of Armenia inevitably leads to a new war with Azerbaijan, as repeatedly warned by Baku at the highest levels. Recall that in his speech at the international forum on "COP29 and the Green Vision for Azerbaijan," organised at ADA University in April of this year, President Ilham Aliyev explicitly stated that Azerbaijan would take retaliatory measures in response to Armenia's increasing militarisation.

"We cannot sit and wait seeing how France, India and Greece are weaponizing Armenia against us, and do it openly, demonstratively, and as if trying to prove something to us. We cannot just sit and wait and we openly express this position to the Armenian government and to those who want to take care of Armenia now. We will have to take serious measures if we see a serious threat to us," warned the Azerbaijani president.

It seems that Yerevan should heed this warning and always remember that in official Baku, words never deviate from actions.