Pashinyan is right, war is more than possible, but who created this situation?

One of the paradoxes in the situation with the border delimitation with Azerbaijan (or the situation with unilateral concessions to Armenia, to be more exact) is that the current government supporters, in their arguments, do not admit that Azerbaijan is engaged in forgery of facts, and the territories that are required to be handed over to Azerbaijan have nothing to do with it.

It is also paradoxical how, just a few months ago, the head of Nikol Pashinyan’s administration, Arayik Harutyunyan, declared that news that Pashinyan handed over enclaves to Azerbaijan in Granada was fake, and today the same person coordinates a significant part of the information policy aimed at convincing the citizens of Armenia that:

• The territories that are being surrendered are not within the sovereign borders of the Republic of Armenia;
• If the territories are not surrendered now, there will be a war soon. Moreover, according to Harutyunyan’s direct supervisor, Nikol Pashinyan, the war will be not only against Azerbaijan but also against Turkey, Pakistan, and even Russia.

No matter how the authorities try to convince people that “by surrendering the territories, they will build new ones instead of lost houses, instead of lost communications”, the map cannot be canceled, and a simple study of it shows that by surrendering the territories, the Armenian side will allow targeting the territories on the Krasny Most-Sevkar-Berd section, where the Armenia-Georgia gas pipeline passes, with the villages of Voskepar and Noyemberyan actually becoming enclaves for Armenia, access to which will be difficult, which logically can lead to the evacuation of local residents.

There is another important nuance: by putting these territories under the control of Azerbaijan, Pashinyan will destroy the line of combat contact built for decades, actually letting Azerbaijanis into the rear of our troops. Let me remind you that Tavush remains that rare section of the line of contact where the Armenian Armed Forces have a dominant position. But Arayik Harutyunyan and supporters of the idea that the “territories that should be surrendered are the territories of Azerbaijan” will not tell you about this.

Instead, they will intimidate you with war, as Pashinyan did last week during a meeting with residents of Tavush. To be frank and sincere, Pashinyan is right. War is indeed possible. However, it is important to understand the essence of the situation that made war a likely scenario.
First, let’s start with the fact that Nikol Pashinyan personally, from a political point of view, can benefit both in the event of war and in the case of the surrender of territories without military clashes.

If there is a war, Russia will be appointed responsible, and Armenia will declare its withdrawal from the CSTO, after which it will be the turn to demand the withdrawal of the border troops of Russia’s Federal Security Service from the territory of Armenia, as well as the withdrawal of 102nd military bases.
If there is no war and the territories are surrendered in “routine mode”, this will allow Pashinyan to extend his term in power for some more time.
But now let’s talk about the most important thing: who and what led us to a situation where war is more than likely?

After the 44-day war and the signing of the agreement of November 9, 2020, it was decided to create a trilateral commission (Armenia-Russia-Azerbaijan), which was supposed to resolve issues of border delimitation and demarcation between the two countries.

Moreover, commenting on this issue, the President of Russia said that Moscow has maps of the USSR General Staff that give the most accurate coordinates of the border between the parties, and these legitimate maps can form the basis of the border delimitation process between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

In April 2022, after the snap elections to the National Assembly, Nikol Pashinyan announced that certain partners were urging the Armenian side to lower the bar of its demands on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, and in response, a broad consolidation around the Republic of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh would be ensured. As a result, in October 2022, Pashinyan recognized Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan by a sole decision, and as former Ambassador-at-Large Edmond Marukyan later said, in exchange for that, Pashinyan expected to receive guarantees from Western partners that Azerbaijan would recognize Armenia within the borders of Soviet Armenia.

However, the EU, the U.S., and NATO in general do not have and did not have instruments that could force Azerbaijan to comply with the agreements, which resulted in the situation where it could get what it wanted by military means, including the territories of Armenia.

But Nikol Pashinyan will not tell you about it either…
In the South Caucasus region, the military and political balance for Armenia in its existential struggle against Azerbaijan and Turkey can be ensured only by Russia and Iran. This is an axiom that Pashinyan and his team prefer to keep silent about because of their personal interest in the integration of Armenia into the Turkic world.

When Pashinyan blackmails with war or complains to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg that Azerbaijan does not recognize the territorial integrity of Armenia, he should be sincere and tell who put Armenia in such a stalemate because of his personal interests.

Think about it…