All Title Simple Truths Newsroom Ethnic Code Artsakh exodus Armenian literature: Audiobook Alpha Economics 7 portraits from the history of the Armenian people

European observers also “swear” that Armenia does not change its foreign policy

April 02 2024, 13:10

Armenia considers the United States and Europe its main partners, but this does not mean a turnaround in foreign policy, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said in an interview with TN TV channel.

“We are a democratic country, and we want to strengthen democratic institutions. We see that, for example, the United States and the European Union are the main partners. We are now deepening economic and political relations with Brussels and Washington. I would not call this a turnaround; we are trying to ensure our security and development along a democratic path, and we see that there are good partners in the West,” he said.

Mirzoyan did not really say anything new, and in many ways his words fit into the general concept of information policy—to deny the obvious—which the authorities have been doing in the country for a long time.

Do you remember that when European observers came to Armenia in 2022 and the Western platform (Brussels and Washington) became the dominant platform for talks with Azerbaijan, the Armenian authorities not only declared that this was an absolutely peaceful mission but also that the Western negotiating platform was complementing the one in Moscow? Moreover, the decision of the Council of Europe on sending a mission to Armenia stated that their mandate in Armenia would be temporary and that the mission would last no more than two months. What do we have in the end?

The EU mission, in accordance with the treaty ratified by the National Assembly of Armenia, received the status of absolute inviolability in Armenia. According to media publications and statements by a number of foreign officials, it already includes former military personnel from Canada, Norway, and the United States, which turned the mission into a tool to legalize NATO’s presence in Armenia, while the Moscow negotiating platform is dead. The same Ararat Mirzoyan has refused to travel to Moscow for consultations on a peace treaty with Azerbaijan since last summer, and Nikol Pashinyan does not receive the special envoy for the South Caucasus, Igor Khovaev. In other words, the authorities said one thing, but the result turned out completely different. The same applies to statements that the Armenian authorities allegedly do not change the country’s foreign policy vector.

Of course, there will be those who will say that no matter what, Nikol Pashinyan and Ararat Mirzoyan are doing the right thing by the foreign policy vector. However, the question is, in which direction do they change this vector?

Armenia’s European aspirations are publicly stated, but it is impossible to “cancel the geographical map”, which means that the “door to the EU” for Pashinyan’s Armenia passes through the “Turkish backyard”. In other words, Armenia is being led towards integration into the Turkic world.

This is exactly what the EU special envoy for the South Caucasus, Toivo Klaar, means when he says that Turkey, as a leading country in the region, can be useful for establishing regional peace.

But if this analysis is correct and Pashinyan is really leading the country to integrate into the Turkic world, then we have to ask what motivates him to take this step.

The answer, in fact, lies on the surface. Under any new political government in Armenia, the events that took place in 2020 and 2023 (the war and the ethnic cleansing in Artsakh) will become the subject of criminal proceedings. There are several options to avoid this: either to dissolve Armenia so that the “plaintiff” disappears, or to integrate Armenia into a system where the surrender of Artsakh and the rejection of national symbols and identity will not be perceived as something punishable. There is only one such system in the world—the Turkic world.

Ararat Mirzoyan, stating that Armenia does not change its foreign policy vector, is trying to hide all of the above from Armenian citizens. He is trying to hide this from the people who, in 2021, did not give him and his supervisor a mandate to dissolve Armenian statehood as part of the Turkic world.
Think about it…