Pashinyan cannot make Aliyev hear him

Armenia continues to exist in a state of permanent experiment. Various actors (from the Azerbaijani authorities to Yerevan’s foreign policy partners) are constantly making various proposals about the future of Armenia, but this is still “half the trouble”. The main problem is that the country’s authorities also have a habit of experimenting with Armenia.
Today, one of the Armenian newspapers published news that Nikol Pashinyan made another proposal as part of the negotiation process between Yerevan and Baku. Pashinyan proposed to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to sign a “peace agreement” between the two countries by including a paragraph that will state that the agreement will enter into force “after amendments to the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia.”

With this proposal, Pashinyan tried, on the one hand, to meet Baku’s demand for a constitutional referendum in Armenia; on the other hand, he tried to achieve the signing of at least some document that could be presented inside the country as a “peace agreement”. Ilham Aliyev, as expected, rejected this proposal, which suggests that Pashinyan’s new political experiment failed.

In general, we are dealing with a chain of failed geopolitical initiatives of official Yerevan, which jeopardize Armenia’s security. What initiatives are we talking about?

1. In April 2022, Pashinyan said the international community would ensure consolidation around Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh if Yerevan lowered the bar on the status of Artsakh. The initiative failed. In Prague, Pashinyan surrendered Artsakh to Azerbaijan; in the fall of 2023, he allowed ethnic cleansing in Artsakh, but Baku did not recognize the territorial integrity of Armenia, and the international community did not consolidate around Armenia, much less around Artsakh.

2. Through diplomatic channels, both Nikol Pashinyan and the government office have repeatedly proposed to the administration of the President of Azerbaijan to create a bilateral mechanism for investigating cases of violations of the ceasefire regime. The initiative failed, and Baku still not only refuses to implement Pashinyan’s proposal but also continues to blame Yerevan each time the situation escalates.

3. At the very beginning of 2024, Pashinyan proposed that Azerbaijan sign a non-aggression pact. And again, a failure. Baku had not reacted positively to this proposal. Moreover, it had not abandoned the practice of provoking border incidents, followed by blaming Yerevan for them, and also continues to actively arm itself (in 2025, Azerbaijan’s defense spending will exceed $4.9 billion).

4. At the end of 2024, Pashinyan issued a statement on the “need to conclude a strategic deal” between Armenia and Azerbaijan for peaceful coexistence in the coming centuries, complementing the peace treaty. The initiative failed. Baku not only rejected Yerevan’s proposals but also filed new lawsuits against Armenia in The Hague Court.

Failure after failure… We can only watch how much longer the Armenian state can resist both Azerbaijan and Pashinyan’s experiments. Endurance is the only thing left after Pashinyan surrendered Artsakh. There is no physical depth anymore.

Think about it…