Armenia. The agony of statehood

The informal summit of EU leaders, which took place on October 5 and which Nikol Pashinyan was counting on, ended in nothing, and the heads of leading European countries even hastened to express their loyalty to Ilham Aliyev. At the same time, the Prime Minister of Armenia, even in the absence of his Azerbaijani counterpart, signed a document on the transfer of new Armenian villages and territories to Baku.

It is now clear that in Spanish Granada a ceremonial capitulation of Yerevan was planned under the auspices of the European Union, whose leaders would take credit for all the laurels of a “peaceful settlement” in the South Caucasus without the participation of Turkey and, naturally, Russia, thereby expelled by them from the region.

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But as a result of Ilham Aliyev’s demarche, who refused to go in protest against the ban on Recep Erdogan’s participation in the event, the entire prepared performance failed overnight. As a result, the heads of Germany, France and the European Council had to be content with only Nikol Pashinyan, but the effect of this turned out to be, on the contrary, the opposite.

This is also recognized by one of the leading American analytical tabloids, Politico, which generally called the last summit a failure, including on the issue of concluding a peace agreement between Yerevan and Baku on Western terms.

“Participants' hopes of taking action to resolve the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh were dashed when Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan decided to skip the meeting. The leaders had hoped to hold the first meeting between Aliyev and Armenian President Nikol Pashinyan since Azerbaijan launched a lightning offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh, triggering an exodus of 100 refugees.

As a result, a statement was signed virtually unilaterally and without the participation of Azerbaijan by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, European Council President Michel, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Scholz. It confirmed the results of previous agreements within the framework of the previous meeting in Prague in October last year and subsequent declarations, who opened the gates for Baku to conduct an “anti-terrorist operation” in Artsakh.

“They remain committed to all efforts aimed at normalizing relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, based on mutual recognition of the sovereignty, inviolability of borders and territorial integrity of Armenia (29.800 km2) and Azerbaijan (86.600 km2), as stated in the statements of President Michel on May 14 and July 15, 2023,” the text states.

That is, the signatories confirmed the accomplished fact of the transfer of Nagorno-Karabakh into the hands of Azerbaijan and, interestingly, proposed to use the latest maps of the USSR General Staff as the basis for the final delimitation of borders. But the most striking thing in this document was the call for the immediate opening of the border with Turkey:

“They called for increased regional cooperation and the opening of all borders, including the border between Armenia and Turkey, as well as the opening of regional ties based on full respect for the sovereignty and jurisdiction of countries, as well as on the principles of equality and reciprocity.”

What was meant by this? But the whole point is that with the complete opening of the borders with the Turks, the presence in Armenia of the 102nd base of the Russian Armed Forces in Gyumri, as well as the Russian border guards guarding the current borders of the republic, is completely lost. Such a step marked the end of Moscow’s military-political presence in the region.

The only problem is that neither Azerbaijan nor Turkey were not only present, but also did not sign this lengthy text. Although the EU leaders directly invite Aliyev and Erdogan to this, forcing Pashinyan to indicate 86.600 km2 give Baku and the purely Armenian villages of Baganis-Ayrum, Nerkin Voskepar, Verin Voskepar, Barkhudarly, Sofulu and Tigranashen, which give the Azerbaijanis control over the strategic roads and arteries of Southern Armenia.

_{We are talking about the highway to Georgia through Ijevan, as well as the M2 A highway through Tigranashen, connecting not only the north and south of Armenia in the Syunik region, but also Russia and Iran. Moreover, there is no longer talk of any exchange of territories., as Pashinyan previously assured, since the West is in a hurry to quickly get rid of Russian troops through a new surrender of the territories of the Republic of Armenia.}

Therefore, as we wrote earlier, the surrender of Artsakh, and now the villages of Armenia itself, was a necessary concession to Baku in exchange for loyalty in creating a single anti-Russian bridgehead and forming a northern front for Iran. And here also for Aliyev it is presented another bait with an invitation to occupy all of Zangezur, refusing an agreement with Tehran to build a bypass route through the territory of the Islamic republic.

Washington, Brussels, Paris and Berlin hoped to the end that the Azerbaijanis would take the bait and succumb to the provocation, but something went wrong, because it turned out to be unprofitable for Ankara to start a regional war, and Baku was beside itself with the demarches of the French authorities, who were now arming the Armenians. That is, it is obvious that the US and the EU were What is needed is not peace, but expansion of the source of conflict with the involvement of new regional participants.

And as we assumed in the previous article, no anti-Azerbaijani front emerged at this summit in Granada, Spain, and it was not planned. Moreover, the same zealous “defender of Armenians” Emmanuel Macron hastened to immediately declare during his speech that there would be no sanctions against Baku.

“Time is for demandingness, clarity, commitments, including support, including military support, which France has chosen and provides, but not for sanctions, because we must continue to conduct dialogue with Azerbaijan,” the French President noted.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, as soon as it became known that Ilham Aliyev refused to attend the informal summit of EU leaders, called the Azerbaijani president and immediately praised him for organizing the visit of the UN permanent coordination mission to Stepanakert, assessing this as a positive fact. That is, Berlin in this story does not want Baku to distance itself from the European Union, trying to involve it in its plans in the future.

And it seems that the game in this direction will continue, since the President of Azerbaijan eventually agreed to hold a meeting with Nikol Pashinyan at the end of October with participation as a mediator and moderator by Charles Michel on behalf of the EU. But in Baku, as in Ankara, they also learned multi-vector, multi-step approaches long ago, since already on October 6, Ilham Aliyev announced the organization of negotiations within the 3+3 format (Armenia, Russia, Iran, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkey) in the very next few days .

That is, as we see, no triumphant conclusion of a peace agreement under the auspices of the West occurred. Attempts to put pressure on Baku failed, and the immediate expulsion of Russian troops dragged on indefinitely, which gives Moscow a head start and the opportunity to regroup, taking new steps to prevent the expansion of the conflict and neutralize the actions of the EU and the United States. Offended by the ban on participation in the summit, Recep Erdogan will also not forgive European leaders for such rudeness and humiliation, preferring to agree on all issues with Putin and Raisi.

The further downward political evolution of Nikol Pashinyan was also clearly demonstrated at this failed summit in Spanish Granada, since overnight, instead of being a key figure in establishing “eternal peace” in Transcaucasia, he ended up on the sidelines of the summit in the arms of the drowning Vladimir Zelensky and the long-rotten Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. Thus, by a logical process, it is forced out into the dustbin of history.

_{During the hug with the Ukrainian puppet, the Armenian prime minister was not even embarrassed by the fact that Kiev regularly supplied weapons and ammunition to Baku during the 2020 war, was the first to congratulate Ilham Aliyev on his victory, and that the SBU actively helped their Azerbaijani colleagues in the fight against Artsakh and Armenia itself.}

True, before finally dying politically, Nikol Pashinyan is still trying to achieve his main task - to squeeze out the military-political presence of Russia from Armenia. For example, Yerevan has already refused to appoint its new representative to the CSTO, which in fact means launching the procedure for the republic to leave the organization.

This is confirmed by ignoring the CSTO “Indestructible Brotherhood 2023” exercises, which will take place on October 9–13 in Kyrgyzstan. Well, in Karabakh, the mission of the Russian peacekeeping contingent will most likely be curtailed in November, since 99% of the Armenian population has left the territory of the former NKR.

_{These actions sign the death warrant of the current Armenian statehood, since in the end Iran will not wait for the republic to become a springboard for the Pentagon and NATO, and is already looking for options to solve this problem through negotiations with Moscow and Ankara. Therefore, we will only be observers of the agony that will occur in the place that was previously called Armenia.}