Azerbaijan

Criticism Raised Against Prime Minister Pashinyan After the Tovuz Escalation

by Shamkhal Abilov

The military incident on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border that took place in July, Russia’s hidden support for Armenia’s actions, and the Kremlin’s irritation with Ankara’s statements on these clashes created a favorable background for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to declare the “victory” and “high combat capability” of the Armenian army. According to him, after the battles on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border on July 12-14, the situation has changed and now Armenia puts forward the following conditions: the general security system of Armenia and Karabakh must be strengthened; Karabakh should become a full-fledged party to the negotiations; Azerbaijan must publicly renounce the use of force and stop anti-Armenian rhetoric; Azerbaijan must abandon maximalist demands and recognize the right of Karabakh to self-determination, the security of Armenia and Karabakh will not be subject to concessions; the countries supplying arms to Azerbaijan should stop these supplies; it is necessary to introduce an international monitoring system, which records who violated the ceasefire; Turkey cannot be a mediator in settlement of the conflict.

It got to the point that Pashinyan, presenting a new version of the “Strategy of National Security of Armenia,” voiced approaches to the settlement of the conflict, which practically do not provide for compromises demanding consent from Azerbaijan both to recognize the independent status of Nagorno-Karabakh, and to alienate a number of adjacent territories, allegedly for ensuring the security of this region.

The hardening of the position of the Armenian side can be seen in the proposal of the leader of the Karabakh separatists, Arayik Harutyunyan, to transfer the “parliament” from Khankendi to Shusha until 2022. The intention to move the administrative center of the puppet regime from Khankendi to Shusha fits into the logic of the latest actions of the Armenian side. It is a consequence of the policy of further consolidation in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. By this step, Armenia, which occupied the Azerbaijani territories, demonstrates its position to continue provocations and consolidate the results of the occupation, not on dialogue and search for a compromise to resolve the conflict.

In response, the leadership of Azerbaijan stated that the conditions put forward by Pashinyan to continue negotiations to resolve the conflict were unacceptable. Thus, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, speaking on July 30 in front of the public in Balaken, stressed that by putting forward such frivolous conditions, Armenia breaks the negotiation process. “I have one answer to all his conditions, and this is our condition: Let the Armenian armed forces leave our land. This is what negotiations have always been about, when and by what stages our territories will be liberated. We have never negotiated on granting independence to Nagorno-Karabakh,” – noted President Ilham Aliyev.

These statements indicate that the negotiation process has practically been disrupted. Over the past years, this situation has arisen several times. As practice shows, after a while, through the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group, the negotiation process was restored. The emergence of this situation is beneficial for Armenia to consolidate the status quo and for Russia to strengthen its influence in the South Caucasus by strengthening the moderation of the negotiation process.

Meanwhile, in Armenia itself, experts state the failure of the government’s policy in the fight against the spread of COVID-19. The work of the government does not stand up to criticism since the situation in which overcoming the epidemic becomes possible not due to prevention but because people manage to get sick with coronavirus cannot be called favorable. The authorities only have data on severe cases of COVID-19 disease. How many people got sick with the virus in one form or another remains unknown, respectively, insignificant to the authorities. It is increasingly difficult for Pashinyan to make excuses for the huge number of mistakes that he and his team have already made. The government does not even have a clear program for solving existing problems.

Currently, the opposition is actively forming in Armenia, criticizing the government’s steps. For example, the ex-director of the National Security Service of Armenia, now the leader of the Homeland party, Artur Vanetsyan, in an interview with the Aravot newspaper, stated that the government has to understand the causes of deaths from the coronavirus. According to him, the government must find errors that exist. It must understand what the main problem is in order to be able to stop the spread of COVID-19. Furthermore, as the co-founder of the One Armenia party Vladimir Martirosyan said in an interview with the Voice of Armenia during the fight against the coronavirus epidemic, the anti-crisis measures and the policy pursued in this regard have become just a fiasco of the authorities. According to Martirosyan, soon Armenia will face serious economic and geopolitical consequences “because in terms of international relations, Armenia today is going through not the best, if not the worst period.”

Pashinyan is also criticized for his interview with Stephen Sakur, the host of the British BBC channel as part of the Hard Talk program. During the interview, Pashinyan made several statements that could provoke political scandals. In particular, Pashinyan called Russian-Armenian relations partnership, not allied, when Sakur asked him about Armenia’s strategic choice – whether it wants to adhere to relations with Russia or start moving towards the EU and NATO. “We are a member of the EAEU and have a Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement with the EU. By the way, the EU is now our main partner in the implementation of the reform program. We have effective cooperation with NATO, and, by the way, we participate in (NATO) missions in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Lebanon, Mali. We have quite effective military cooperation with the United States,” Pashinyan listed those factors as more important, in his opinion, aspects of Armenia’s international policy than its ties with Russia.

Sakur also drew attention to the contradictory moments in Pashinyan’s logic: Armenia cannot move into NATO because of conflict with Turkey and cannot move closer to the United States without stopping cooperation with Iran, but most importantly, she cannot get away from choosing between loyalty to Moscow and “other direction.” In response, Nikol Pashinyan once again stated that he considers relations with Russia only at the strategic partnership level. Thus, Pashinyan de facto outlined the strategic priorities of Yerevan.

Touching upon the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Pashinyan voiced statistics that refute all the previous rhetoric of the occupiers of Azerbaijani territories. “Let’s face reality. In reality, at the time of the conflict, 19% … 18% of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh were Armenians,” he said, although the standard position of supporters of the occupation of Karabakh is based on the fact that in the Soviet years in Karabakh the Armenian population was up to 80%. By the way, this is evidenced by the data of the last Soviet population census of 1989. With these statements, Pashinyan earned criticism even from the Armenian National Congress party, which supported him. The deputy chairman of this party, Levon Zurabyan, sharply criticized Pashinyan’s interview. He stated that with this interview, in which the Prime Minister could not answer a single question from the presenter, Pashinyan damaged the image of Armenia. “There are several reasons for this – the content of the answers, the insufficient level of English, the previous steps of the Prime Minister, for which we now need to justify,” he said, stressing that Pashinyan has neither a clear policy nor his idea of ​​the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Thus, Pashinyan, by his erroneous actions, gives opponents a broad scope for criticizing the government and forming an opposition coalition, in which people close to the prime minister may also find themselves.