Will Pashinyan be able to overcome “Aliyev’s veto”?

Even the Armenian authorities, represented by NA Speaker Alen Simonyan, admit that Azerbaijan was surprised that the Armenian side accepted the preconditions proposed within the “peace agreement”. Let us analyze the other foreign policy initiatives recently highlighted by the Armenian side.

There are two similar initiatives: the introduction of the draft bill “On the beginning of the process of Armenia’s accession to the European Union” to the National Assembly’s agenda (which has already passed its first reading) and the temporary opening of the Margara checkpoint on the Armenian-Turkish border.
Regarding the opening of the checkpoint, former Turkish Ambassador to Azerbaijan and representative of the İMZA Public Union for Social Development in Turkey, Hulusi Kilic, offered a noteworthy assessment. He stated that Turkey would not take any steps contrary to Azerbaijan’s interests. He also assured that the Turkish authorities are closely coordinating and discussing with the Azerbaijani side any steps regarding Yerevan. In other words, while Pashinyan generated headlines about the opening of the Armenian-Turkish border checkpoint, this did not globally affect Turkey’s perspective on the situation.

As for the draft bill on the EU accession, it should be said that, although at first glance it may seem that the Armenian authorities are fully committed to advancing this initiative, it is likely that Pashinyan’s faction will vote in favor of the draft again. However, there is no guarantee that Pashinyan will see the process through to completion—not due to a lack of competence (though that may also be a factor), but for reasons of a different nature.

Once again, we have to state that the current sovereignty of Pashinyan’s Armenia is exclusively negative: Yerevan can still disrupt something (for example, the CSTO initiative to deploy peacekeepers), but there is no positive sovereignty. Pashinyan’s Armenia cannot complete any political project, as the number of external factors influencing Armenian authorities’ decisions has grown so significantly that any process can be halted by border escalations or media statements.

Think about it…