US once again demonstrated to Pashinyan that Erdogan is “responsible for the region”

In 2019, during the first stage of the contradictions between the CSTO and Nikol Pashinyan, when the “leader of the velvet revolution” began criminal prosecution against former CSTO Secretary General Yuri Khachaturov, a remarkable case occurred on the sidelines of the EAEU and CIS summits in St. Petersburg. Pashinyan gave President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko the side-eye, after which Pashinyan’s media began to ridicule the Belarusian leader, and Pashinyan’s look was called “demanding explanation.”

Years after this performance, Pashinyan flies to New York to participate in the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, during which, according to Turkish media reports, he will also hold talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In the context of the events of 2019, we would like to understand whether Pashinyan will look at Erdogan with a look that “demands explanation”—and there is really something to look at. Last week, the chief of Turkey’s national intelligence organization, Ibrahim Kalın, said that peace between Baku and Yerevan would contribute to the opening of the Zangezur Corridor. And Erdogan himself once again raised the issue of the corridor in the summer and said: “The Zangezur corridor is the final step of the peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan.” It would be interesting to know whether Pashinyan will demand explanations about these words of Erdogan and Kalın or not.

We should also look at the Turkish media reports in the context of domestic political events. Before his trip to the United States, Pashinyan’s coalition partner in the Yerevan City Council, Arman Sargsyan, noted that he saw in the Armenian Foreign Ministry’s statement issued on the first anniversary of the ethnic cleansing of the Armenians of Karabakh, Armenia’s readiness to sign a peace treaty with Azerbaijan under the auspices of the United States on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Pashinyan, through Sargsyan, voiced his “wishlist” to geopolitical actors, and for the Armenian people, he once again repeated the mantra that “American ships will come and become guarantors of the peace treaty of Yerevan and Baku.”

Let’s leave aside the fact that US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs James O’Brien, while in Yerevan, made it clear that the United States would not be guarantors of the peace treaty, noting that “no one asked Washington to assume this function” and note that a potential meeting between Pashinyan and Erdogan in New York is a clear sign that Washington has not changed its position, and if Armenia wants any guarantees, it must negotiate with Turkey. Turkey, on the other hand, wants the “Zangezur corridor”, arms restrictions for Armenia, the closure of the Metsamor nuclear power plant, and many other things, which will eventually lead to the elimination of Armenian statehood.

The potential meeting between Erdogan and Pashinyan has another important and ominous nuance. These two politicians communicated about a year ago. They talked on the phone, and according to Turkish media reports, the Turkish president stated that Nikol Pashinyan was aware of Azerbaijan’s intention to carry out “an anti-terrorist operation in Karabakh.”

And now, a year later, these two figures will have the opportunity to discuss something again, but face-to-face… Could it be the status of Armenia itself?

Think about it…