Armenian drama

Is the peace agreement between Baku and Yerevan real and what does Russia have to do with it?

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev began his war with Armenia in September 2020 and achieved almost all its goals in 44 days. The Armenians fought alone, no one helped them, neither Russia nor the CSTO, and they lost this war. Ukraine was lucky more (...), almost the whole West was on its side.

As a result, after 15 months of this operation, as the deputy chairman of the State Duma committee on the CIS Constantine Zatulin, “(...) Ukraine survived”.

Armenia also survived. Thanks to Putin’s mediation on November 9, 2020, a tripartite peace agreement was signed between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia. Azerbaijani troops took Shushu and stopped a few tens of kilometers from Stepanakert, the capital of an unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. Few doubted then that, if desired, the Azerbaijanis would have reached him. But, firstly, Baku did not really need it, since the main goal was achieved-

Azerbaijan returned seven regions occupied by Armenia around Karabakh during the First Armenian-Azerbaijani war in the early 1990s. And secondly, Yerevan himself declared on the eve of November 9 about his readiness to stop military operations.

The results of that war allowed Aliyev to affirm two positions important for understanding the current reality in the South Caucasus, which in different variations he repeated all past from that moment for two and a half years.

• The first - in Baku, henceforth proceeds from the fact that the issue of the status of Karabakh as independent international jurisdiction is no longer discussed, this territory is part of Azerbaijan.

• The second - in Baku they do not get tired of repeating that the future peace treaty with Armenia, if it is concluded, is only on the terms of the Baku, which are “fair”.

The last time Aliyev formulated his “victorious” theses on the country's Independence Day, on May 28 in Lachina, which was busy with Azerbaijan.

“... Today we will be here forever. Let them also know that the villages of Armenia are visible from here. We also see these villages, that is, let them not forget about it. ”

This ultimate tone has permeated this all his speech familiar to the Azerbaijani president.

QUOTE

Ilham Aliyev:

“Everyone knows that today we have the opportunity to carry out any operation in that region (in Karabakh). Therefore, the “parliament” (Karabakh) must be dissolved, an element calling itself “president” should give up, all “ministers”, “deputies” and others should already leave their posts ... Only in this case can we talk about any amnesty. ”

Aliyev called the only way that he leaves the Karabakh Armenians:

QUOTE

Ilham Aliyev:

“This is to submit to the laws of Azerbaijan, to become loyal, normal citizens of Azerbaijan, to throw their fake“ state attributes ”into the garbage bucket and dissolve the parliament.”

You can take out the insulting tone of the Azerbaijani autocrat as brackets, but one cannot but admit that he is telling the Karabakh Armenians bitter truth:

“Unfortunately, they still rely on someone that someone will come and save them, and will wage war with Azerbaijan. This is nonsense. "

Do Armenians understand this - what's in Yerevan, what is in Stepanakert? Undoubtedly. And this remains the main, insurmountable drama of the Armenian people, who discovered their military weakness in confrontation with a neighbor. The defeat in the war, which overthrew the long -standing national idea of ​​Armenism - to create a single state or have two Armenian states - led to the frustration of the Armenian society.

The choice between bad and very bad, if not terrible, was forced to do the Armenian prime minister in this situation.

To abandon the ambitions to preserve Karabakh Armenian and achieve from Azerbaijan guarantees of the inviolability and integrity of Armenia (subject to external guarantees), or to continue to defend the right of Karabakh to an independent status and be prepared for a new war with Azerbaijan, which can become destructive for the statehood of Armenia itself.

In Artsakh himself, as the Armenians call Karabakh, these plans caused both rage and bitter disappointment. They promise to resist, their leaders refer to the documents of the early 1990s, where the leadership of Armenia signed under the obligation to never recognize the decision of the Karabakh issue, which would include the entry of Karabakh into Azerbaijan.

But this is what Pashinyan’s statement that made a lot of noise about the allegedly agreed with Baku mutual recognition of territorial integrity implies a lot of noise:

Armenia recognizes 86.6 thousand square meters. kilometers of Azerbaijan, which means that the territory of Karabakh is also included in this square. In response, Baku must recognize the territorial integrity of Armenia with an area of ​​29.8 thousand square meters. kilometers.

But if Nikol Pashinyan uttered these figures publicly, then Ilham Aliyev never did this so far.

It would seem that he is preventing him from confirming this consent indicating the area of ​​Armenia recognized by him, especially since both parties agree to be divided according to the administrative borders between the two countries at the time of the signing of the 1991 Alma-Ata Declaration on the collapse of the USSR?

This is where the dog is buried. The fact is that in May 2021 Azerbaijan occupied part of the Syunik region of Armenia near the alleged so -called Zangezur transport corridor connecting the main territory of Azerbaijan with its Nakhichevan autonomy.

According to Baku, this corridor will have to be controlled by Azerbaijanis, which is categorically unacceptable for Armenia, which is ready to open this corridor, provided that the jurisdiction of Yerevan is complete over it. Ilham Aliyev harshly insists on his demands and threatens to solve the problem by force.

The “corridor” conflict was in the center of skirmish during the EAEU summit in Moscow on May 24, to which Putin (master - Barin) was also invited by Aliyev. Although Azerbaijan is not a member of the Union, the president arrived for the sake of the meeting on the same day for three, with Pashinyan and Putin. It is difficult to say whether there was an invitation to Aliyev to a stranger for him a summit of Putin’s scenario development, who wanted to show that in Moscow, where all his own, more reliable to agree on the warring neighbors than somewhere there in the western capitals, as it was in May: first in Washington, and then in Brussels ... here is Sergey Shoigu at the meeting of ministers of the USBR in Minsk (Armenian minister ignored it, referring to employment) told her colleagues that "the main thing for the West is to oust Russia from the South Caucasus, and not ensure the safety and prosperity of the region in the long term."

When Aliyev, having first spoke a couple of on -duty phrases about the benefits of cooperation between his country with the EAEU, crossed to what he flew to Moscow, the present learned that the opening of Zangezursky would become an important contribution to the implementation of large -scale communications plans for the North -South and East -West. This Aliyevsky entry from global trump cards outraged Pashinyan, who said in response,

that in the tripartite agreement of November 9, 2020, the “Zangesursky” corridor is not mentioned at all, we are only talking about the obligation of the parties to open transport communications.

Aliyev was calm and admitted that he himself came up with this term, they say, this is his right, as if by the way adding then that the President of Russia shares his approaches ... Pashinyan seemed to be confused: “I didn’t hear anything about it ...” There was some awkwardness in the hall, it might seem that Aliev passed Putin and that there was some agreement between them ...

The owner of the summit had to dispel this awkwardness during a personal meeting with the Armenian prime minister, explaining to him,

That Aliyev is still committed to a tripartite agreement, and Russia will always be an ally of Armenia. And then Pashinyan also thanked Pashinyan that he agreed to participate in Aliyev in the EAEU summit ...

It may seem to someone a certain form of political Jesuity, but I do not agree with this, everyone here is ...

Nevertheless, the expectations of some real advancements in the peaceful process during the meeting for three after the “corridor” skirmishes noticeably faded. And so it turned out: Pashinyan, Aliyev and Putin spent only 20 minutes together in the night at the night, most of which took the performance of the Russian president. After clarification of relations a couple of hours before, guests had nothing to talk about. There was no expected joint statement.

In order to at least justify the meeting, it was decided, at the suggestion of Putin, to collect the deputy prime ministers of the three countries in Moscow to resolve the issue of crossings across the border. On June 3, they met and "reached an understanding of the restoration of the railway post of Erash-Julf-Migri-Goradiz." The Kremlin PR was like a significant, almost decisive contribution to the promotion of the peace process.

The next meeting between Pashinyan and Aliyev took place on June 1 in Chisinau on the sidelines of the Summit of the European Political Community in the presence of the chairman of the European Council Michel, President of France Macron and Chancellor of Germany Scholyts. As expected, she did not bring any surprises.

In addition to one - a body armor was seen at the Armenian premiere. His security service did not exclude the attempt on the chef from the radical members of the Armenian community in Moldova, there many consider Pashinyan a traitor. He also faces the same accusations in his homeland.

On June 3, the trace of Armenia said that "the Prime Minister of Armenia was questioned as a witness in the framework of a criminal case, instituted on the grounds of state treason." The details of the case are not disclosed.

You can’t envy Pashinyan, democratic institutions in Armenia are one way or another, but they function. This feature of present -day Armenia, among other things, causes rage in the influential in the media of some Russian Armenians close to the Kremlin. But the reasons to blame him for betrayal look somewhat different than the opponents of Pashinyan in their homeland: the Armenian prime minister almost defiantly leads his country from the influence of Moscow.

Going to Moscow to meet with Aliyev, Pashinyan warned that there was no need to wait for a peace agreement with Azerbaijan. He frankly made it clear that he no longer believes in the readiness of union Russia to ensure the safety of Armenia, and in these conditions he is forced to look for security guarantors among Western partners. The eloquent expression of this intention was the negotiations of the prime minister with high -ranking American military, who arrived in Yerevan on the eve of his departure to Moscow. It must be understood that Pashinyan’s statements about the possibility of Armenia's exit from the CSTO are directly related to the search for other guarantors of their safety.

If this becomes a reality, then Armenia is unleashed by the hands for deploying the military infrastructures of other “unfriendly” countries for Russia, primarily the United States ... The Charter of the CSTO did not allow this without agreement with the allies.

Further - more. After a couple of days, Pashinyan gives an interview CNN, which gives a clear picture of the most nervous cut in the relationship of Yerevan and Moscow:

QUOTE

Nikol Pashinyan:

“... This was never said aloud, but I think that this is visible: in [military operations] with Ukraine we are not an ally of Russia. And our feeling ... From this conflict is anxiety, because it directly affects all our relations. ”

“In the West, they notice that we are an ally of Russia, they notice this more. And in Russia they see that we are not an ally in [hostilities] with Ukraine. And it turns out that we are not an ally in this situation, and therefore vulnerable. It seems that there is a way to maneuver between all these clashes, but also the truth is that the more complicated the situation becomes, the more the possibility of maneuvering is narrowing. We do not advocate because we have no opinion about the situation, but because, unfortunately, we have too many worries, which does not allow us to be more involved in the decision of other worries. ”

“We know that there are certain nuances in the approaches of Armenia to the conflict in Ukraine,” Dmitry Peskov humbly answered these revelations, “but we continue to develop our allied relations with Armenia.”

Moscow is not ready for confrontation with Yerevan, in the end the fate of the 102nd Russian military base in the Armenian Gyumri ...

On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine the simultaneous presence of Russian and American military bases in Armenia. The last time this took place in the early 2000s in Kyrgyzstan. Kurmanbek Bakiev, who was then the president of the country, pulled for a very long time with the fulfillment of Putin’s promise to bring the American base “Manas”. In the end, Bakiev was overthrown, and Almazbek Atambaev, who came in his place after a couple of years, nevertheless drove the Americans, which in Moscow was appreciated highly.

One way or another, but the main ups and downs in the Russian-Armenian clinch is still ahead. And the peace process between Baku and Yerevan goes its own, independent of Moscow. Pashinyan and Aliyev, apparently, in a rather favorable environment met on June 3 in Ankara at the inauguration of the re -elected President of Turkey Recep Erdogan.

Already the invitation of the Armenian prime minister to Ankara is an expressive evidence that Turkish mediation in the conflict has more chances to become successful than the Russian one. However, possibly with him.

In the meantime, the warring leaders agreed in Ankara to meet again next week. The calendar of the nearest Armenian-Azerbaijani summits in Europe and the USA is already known. Moscow and Aliyev will also not be bypassed, at least for diplomatic reasons, to completely withdraw Russia from participants in the peace process in the South Caucasus counterproductive.

It is difficult to experience optimism in relation to the world, too many players have their own interests here, which collide in the region. Like almost everything that is happening now in the world, the formula of a peaceful decision will largely depend on the outcome of military operations in Ukraine.

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