Moscow will not silently watch Armenia drift toward Europe: Marat Bashirov

Marat Bashirov, political scientist, commented to Alpha News on the visit of Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission President, to Armenia and Azerbaijan.

“As part of Ursula von der Leyen’s visit, what matters most, of course, is how firmly Pashinyan will stand in defending the interests of European elites, French elites in particular, because Moscow’s recent actions show that it will not silently watch Armenia drift toward Europe. Accordingly, this is a test for Pashinyan. She is also traveling to Azerbaijan for an obvious reason: some of Armenia’s interests are tied to the actions of Azerbaijan and Turkey. And she evidently wants to talk with Mr. Aliyev so that he does not obstruct Armenia’s European integration,” the political scientist believes.

In Bashirov’s view, Armenia is an apple of discord between the United States and Europe in their regional projects.

“The underlying story here lies in the policy the United States has begun pursuing toward Armenia. Their goals are entirely different. They want to build a forward outpost there against Iran, because Israel is located quite far from Iran, there’s Iraqi territory, Jordan lies between the two countries, but Armenia borders Iran directly, and it would be quite feasible to station a military base there, along with some surveillance assets. I’ll remind you that the United States currently has no air base of its own in Central Asia. The last one was in Kyrgyzstan, and it has not existed there for many years now. So the goals differ, but all of this reflects the economic battle between the US and Europe. Armenia has ended up caught in this vise: no one is actually interested in what happens to Armenia’s economy. The fairy tales about enormous investment are all lies. Everyone is interested in Armenia as a territory that is convenient to operate from,” the expert concluded.