Armenian people’s choice is one thing, Pashinyan’s arbitrary choice is another: Pavel Danilin

Political analyst Pavel Danilin commented to Alpha News on the upcoming meeting between the leaders of Armenia and Russia and a possible referendum on maintaining Yerevan’s membership in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).

“Pashinyan is heading to Moscow amid fairly tense relations — relations that he himself strains further every day. The idea of confiscating, of stealing the Russian Railways (RZD) branch in Armenia can, of course, provoke nothing but outrage on our part. Because that system was built by RZD specifically for Armenia; it was always loss-making, mind you, and now it runs like clockwork. I find it hard to imagine how that system would keep working if it were suddenly confiscated. But I know for certain that if Pashinyan is coming to this meeting in Moscow with something like that in mind, he’ll leave with nothing,” Danilin believes.

In the expert’s view, Russia’s leadership wants clarity on Armenia’s foreign policy direction.

“Russia is posing the question: decide where you stand. You can’t sit on two chairs. So Pashinyan’s choice is simple: either he holds a referendum, and in that referendum the people of Armenia say, ‘We want to join the European Union, they’ll feed us all sorts of goodies there, we’ll sell our apricots and trout there, and we don’t need Moscow’, okay, that’s the choice of the Armenian people. But if Pashinyan wants, by his own personal choice, to tear away a people that is friendly, in many ways fraternal (given how many Armenians live on our land), from us, simply by his own willful decision, that’s the wrong approach. And that’s exactly why Vladimir Putin is insisting on a referendum. The choice of the Armenian people is one thing; the entirely arbitrary choice of some Pashinyan or other is something else entirely,” the political analyst concluded.