Will Pashinyan’s new “zero point” zero out Armenia?

Nikol Pashinyan begins each new political cycle with the phrase about “zero point” in relations and negotiations with Azerbaijan.

In April 2019, after meetings between representatives of the special services of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Dubai, Nikol Pashinyan stated that after coming to power, he “did not continue negotiations from the point of view of his predecessor, but began negotiations from his own point of view.” In other words, in 2019 Pashinyan publicly reset the entire baggage of the negotiation process on the Karabakh issue. and he is responsible for all the processes that followed.

Until September 27, 2020, Nikol Pashinyan negotiated the Karabakh issue from his “zero point” and negotiated “what he wants”, speaking under the banner of “Armenia from sea to sea” and stating that Armenia has actually proved that it is the most combat-ready army in the region. He bought weapons that were either immediately destroyed during the 44-day war or never entered combat, like the Su-30. As a result, we got a war, a defeat, a failure in the negotiation process after the statement of November 9, 2020, and the fall of the Republic of Artsakh after almost a year of exhausting blockade.

After November 9, 2020, and especially after the snap elections of 2021, Pashinyan completely changed his position, but we again got war, human and territorial losses, and defeat.

However, judging by the statement of December 14, Nikol Pashinyan not only did not learn lessons from what happened in 2020, from what happened to Artsakh, but also continued to pursue the policy that led us to national collapse in 2020 and 2023.

This time, without Artsakh, Pashinyan declares that the prisoner exchange can be considered a “zero point” in relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Let’s leave aside the fact that Pashinyan’s statement “zeroed out” several dozen prisoners of war that are still in Azerbaijan, including the military and political leadership of Artsakh, and note that Pashinyan’s “zero point” in this context means the continuation of negotiations according to the Azerbaijani-Turkish agenda.

As for Azerbaijan and Turkiye, both Aliyev and Erdogan and a number of Turkish and Azerbaijani officials have repeatedly stated what they want from Armenia at the moment:

– The final closure of the Artsakh issue, with its consideration as part of Azerbaijan, as well as the “guarantees against Armenian revanchism” in the future;

– Armenia must surrender the so-called enclaves;

– Armenia must ensure the “return” of the so-called Azerbaijani refugees to Armenia;

– The connection between the eastern part of Azerbaijan and Nakhichevan through the territory of Armenia: Armenia or the European Union should bear the costs of these communications, and subsequently they should function without customs obstacles (Aliyev actually requires a corridor, but the wording is different, so as not to prevent Nikol Pashinyan from presenting it differently in Armenia and once again deceiving the Armenian people). By the way, the demand for a corridor from Armenia was actually confirmed by the same Charles Michel the day before;

– Armenia should change the Constitution, which will make it possible to proclaim the “creation of the Fourth Republic”, thereby abandoning the current declaration of Independence;

– Closure of the Armenian nuclear power plant;

– Payment of “reparations” for the “damage” caused by Armenia to the Azerbaijani economy during the “occupation of Karabakh”.

It has been repeatedly noted that Baku, Ankara and the collective West are in a hurry to “zero out Armenia” while Russia is occupied by Ukraine, and this haste increases with the deterioration of the situation of Ukrainian troops and the advance of Russia along the entire front.

It is not difficult to guess what will happen after fulfilling the demands of Aliyev, Erdogan and the collective West, and it may all end with Pashinyan signing a document from another bunker on the “dissolution of the statehood of the Republic of Armenia”, and then declaring that “there was no alternative to the dissolution.”

Turkiye and Azerbaijan are anticipating the “final act” of Pashinyan’s zeroing of Armenia. What awaits the Armenian people? Only the military-political elite knows.

It is striking in this situation not only that the “behind-the-scenes moderators” do not even change the script and the remarks of its participants, but also that in conditions where the main actors have not changed since the 2020 war, the appetites of Armenia’s neighbors have not changed either, and the Armenian leadership and its approaches to international politics have also stayed the same.
It is strange that, under all these conditions, someone still believes that the result of Pashinyan’s current policy may somehow differ from what happened in 2020. But the main victim of this policy will be Armenia itself…