Pashinyan and his cabinet have realised that joking with Baku could lead to dire outcomes Caliber.Az talks to Kazakh, Russian pundits

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's statements about his intention to normalise relations with Baku and renounce territorial claims against Azerbaijan through a change in the Armenian constitution stand in contrast to another obvious fact - Yerevan continues to pile up accusations against Azerbaijan. Armenia continues to repeat its vile mantra of alleged "ethnic cleansing" of Karabakh Armenians and "forcing them to resettle" in September 2023 in various international fora. And here is another example of "intentions to normalise relations": at the PACE, the Armenian delegation voted unanimously for an anti-Azerbaijani resolution. All this casts serious doubts on the honesty of Pashinyan's statements.

So what does Yerevan want? Peace? Or is it a game to delay negotiations? Caliber.Az posed these questions to foreign experts.

According to Dmitry Babich, a Russian political scientist and columnist for the InoSMI Dmitry Babich portal, Pashinyan is still determined to sign a peace treaty with Azerbaijan.

"A peace treaty with Azerbaijan is the wish of Pashinyan's Western allies. He is fulfilling it, or at least trying to give the US and EU countries the impression that he is trying to fulfil it. This is the main line of his policy," the Russian political analyst noted.

But, according to Babich, Pashinyan is trying to put a "sugar coating" on this bitter pill, which should be fed to the nationalistically inclined part of the Armenian population - a lot of attacks against official Baku on various occasions, including statements about "genocide" in Karabakh, voting for Azerbaijan's exclusion from the PACE, which does not solve anything.

"There will be a lot of such games, Pashinyan needs them 'for accountability' before the nationalists. These are provocations, and Azerbaijan should not fall for them," Babich pointed out.

At the same time, Pashinyan is playing a double game, according to Kazakh political analyst Ruslan Salikhov. He is delaying the fulfilment of commitments and agreements as much as possible, expecting support or help from the West. But when this strategy does not work, he makes some agreements with Baku, but he does it step by step and extremely cautiously.

"Pashinyan is an actor who always makes it clear to the Armenian opposition and the revanchist community that he has gone for some agreements only because he has no other way out if the West does not help him at all. In this context, Pashinyan has no big plans, he is a politician of moments and coincidences. In this sense, we can say that as a politician he has long since stopped showing political will, he simply goes with the flow and keeps stressing that he is accountable for nothing. Pashinyan's 'I have nothing to do with it' policy allows him to successfully absolve himself of responsibility for what is happening and even inspire some trust in part of the population. The word on the street is that Nikol is trying, but circumstances and enemies are against Armenia, so he does what he can. It should be noted that Pashinyan immediately absolved himself of responsibility for the defeat in the 44-day war, blaming the previous leaders of Armenia. Incidentally, given the extremely low ratings of the revanchists so far, this apparently worked," Kazakh pundit noted.

"So when Pashinyan, in public speeches, ostensibly addresses the people and declares that Armenia is forced to take this or that step following Azerbaijan's demands, this is a disguised appeal to the West and pro-Armenian forces abroad for intervention. However, Azerbaijan's actions in September 2022 and 2023 visibly frightened Pashinyan and his cabinet. Everyone has realised that it is not worth joking and flirting with Baku. Therefore, I believe that Pashinyan will go ahead with the signing of a peace treaty with Azerbaijan for two reasons. First, because he is aware that in this context the West is more in favour of a peace treaty than it is against, and he has no expectation of help. The second is that he has realised that a delay in the negotiation process with Azerbaijan could lead to irreversible consequences that he, Pashinyan, will no longer be able to prevent or reverse," Salikhov said.