Benyamin Poghosyan - At the Brink of a New War? | Armenia Russia Relations | Platform Shuffle: Brussels vs Moscow | Yerevan Mayor | Ep 286, Oct 15, 2023 [EP286]

Guest:

• Benyamin Poghosyan

Topics:

• At the Brink of a New War?
• Relations with Russia
• Platform Shuffle: Brussels vs. Moscow
• Update on Yerevan Mayor

Episode 286 | Recorded: October 17, 2023

Show Notes

At The Brink of New War?

There is a variety of troubling news, mostly in western sources, of an impending new war being planned by Azerbaijan. A risk that we cannot exclude and must consider.

The major news pieces confirming this are:

• On Monday, October 9, Armenia’s ambassador to the EU, Tigran Balayan, warned of an “imminent” attack by Azerbaijan unless the collective west takes action
• The on Friday (October 13), Politico.eu, citing two people familiar with the matter, informed that Blinken had warned a group of lawmakers that Azerbaijan may attack Armenia in the coming weeks in order to physically take the so-called “Zangezur corridor”
  • Azatutyun, Armenpress and 168.am carried the State Department’s denial of this news. Initially the State Department gave a very political response to the query, but Politico stood by its reporting.
  • When the Iranian Foreign Ministry was asked about the Politico report, they responded: “‘Azerbaijan must answer this question”

Just today, Oct 17, in a speech in the European Parliament, Pashinyan made references to undisclosed “experts” that Azerbaijan does not recognize the territorial integrity of Armenia, which according to him consists of 29.8K sq. km., in order to prepare the grounds for military aggression.

Questions:

• How likely is such a scenario, and with what objectives?
• How likely is support from Russia or Iran to come to Armenia?
• If anything the West has explicitly told Armenia they would not physically defend t, so what hopes do we have from the West? When has the “collective west” intervened?

Relations with Russia

This week, Vahagn Khachaturyan signed the ratification of the Rome Statute, something Russia repeatedly warned they would view as an extremely unfriendly gesture.
Armenia as we said also snubbed Russia and the CSTO by not attending the CSTO meetings in Bishkek. This follows months of consistent anti-Russian activity including a visit by Pashinyan’s wife to Ukraine (and the town of Bucha), Nikol Pashinyan himself visited Ukraine and met with Zelensky, he even met with Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya an opposition leader in Belarus who challenges Lukashenko’s role as winner of elections.

Putin on the other hand has been very circumspect and conciliatory in his words towards Armenia. Both at the Valdai Club, and also in Bishkek, Putin at least in words said that he understands that Armenia is coping with large humanitarian problems right now. He also once again repeated that he doesn’t believe Pashinyan came to power in order to hand away Artsakh.

Of course, in those same events Putin also repeated that the principal determinant of the fate of Artsakh was Pashinyan’s own recognition. Also, most other leaders of Russia and Russian media criticize Pashinyan as an untrustworthy ally who is trying to leave Russia’s orbit.

Earlier last week, Pashinyan lowered his anti-Russian rhetoric and said Armenia is neither leaving the CSTO, nor asking Russia to pull out of Armenia. But today, in the European Parliament, he again blamed the Russia-led CSTO for leaving Armenia “all alone” after Azerbaijan attacked Armenia several times after the 2020 war. He also accused Russia of trying to interfere in Armenia’s internal affairs in the 2021 parliamentary elections by trying to replace him and install a “puppet government”.

Question:

• What are the dynamics driving this relationship and this dialog?

Platform Shuffle: Brussels vs Moscow

Competition is heating up again between Brussels and Moscow regarding which venue will be the location of the so-called “peace treaty”.

In Grenada, Pashinyan signed a statement recognizing Artsakh as Azerbaijan, while Aliyev refused to attend. Even this unilateral gesture by Pashinyan, which was demanded by Aliyev, was not enough for the latter who mocked Pashinyan, Charles Michel, Olaf Scholz, and Emmanuel Macron for holding a meeting where they discussed Azerbaijan without him.

After Grenada, Russia offered to mediate at all levels; foreign ministerial, as well as the executive, in Bishkek last week. Pashinyan did not attend, nor did he join remotely. His foreign minister did not attend either.

Aliyev exploited this masterfully by asking why Armenia is rejecting mediation of Russia which is closer to both Azerbaijan and Armenia, while traveling great distances to seek mediation of Europe and declaring that Armenia does not want peace. Obviously, this is very cynical coming from someone who just finished a tour of ghost towns in occupied Artsakh, while walking on Artsakh flags in military uniform, but that’s beside the point.

Aliyev further said that as an alternative to negotiations in a format mediated by Russia, they would be willing to negotiate with Armenia directly in Georgia.

Meanwhile, Armenian officials again pinned hopes on an upcoming meeting in Brussels at the end of October, the status of which has not yet been confirmed.

Questions:

• Pashinyan, in Aliyev’s absence in Grenada, had a golden opportunity to get some pro-Armenian statements from EU leaders. Yet there was no mention that what happened in Artsakh was ethnic cleansing.
  • Why? How would you evaluate the statement signed in Grenada?
• Pashinyan said that if Aliyev recognizes Armenia’s territory of 29.8K sq km, then they will have agreement on 70% of the “peace treaty” under negotiation”. What are other major points of contention?

Update on Yerevan Elections

A week ago, Tigran Avinyan was elected as mayor of Yerevan. His party garnered 32% of the vote, which in itself was the result of a 28% voter turnout. Yet, somehow last week the Yervean city council elected Avinyan as mayor.

Questions:

• Can you summarize how this happened? I thought Avinyan did not have the votes to get elected?
• Where does this leave Marutyan, and Tevanyan, as the opposition groups?

Topics from the Panelists

• Benyamin: Aliyev in Stepanakert was a terrible day. But remember that we survived 1915, and keep your chin up.
• Hovik: Yes, but… for Artsakhtsis it was terrible and it means nothing to them that it wasn’t as bad as The Genocide.

Wrap-up

We hope you found our Week in Review helpful. We invite your feedback and your suggestions, you can find us on most social media and podcast platforms. Thanks to Laura Osborn for the music on our podcasts.

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