Lukashenko urged to apologize: Pashinyan's "revenge" has set a dangerous precedent

Two months have passed since the actual rupture of relations between Armenia and Belarus, but the parties have not yet taken steps towards reconciliation.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan did not take back his loud words that neither he nor any other official of the Transcaucasian republic would visit Belarus while Alexander Lukashenko remains president there. The Belarusian leader, in turn, expressed no regret about his own statements during his May visit to Azerbaijan, which angered the head of the Armenian government. In mid-June, Pashinyan suggested that Lukashenko should apologize to the Armenian people for what he said when communicating with Aliyev.

Let us recall the rather sudden and emotional history of the conflict. Speaking in the Armenian parliament on June 13, Pashinyan said that theoretically the situation around the CSTO could change if Belarus decides to withdraw from the organization or the president of Belarus "apologizes and provides such explanations that will be acceptable to the people of Armenia."

"The head of one of the CSTO member states declares that he participated in the preparation of the 44-day war (in Karabakh), encouraged, believed and wished Azerbaijan victory. And after that I have to go and sit and discuss this issue with the President of Belarus in the CSTO format? Although there is such a situation that to one degree or another I will be forced (to communicate with the President of Belarus) within the framework of the EAEU and the CIS, but I also want to say the following: I state that I will never visit Belarus again as long as Alexander Lukashenko is the president of Belarus. And in general, I declare that from now on no official representative of the Republic of Armenia will visit Belarus," Pashinyan snapped.

On the same day, Minsk responded to Lukashenka's offer to apologize. The official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus Anatoly Glaze suggested that the statements of the Armenian prime minister are a way to distract attention from the internal problems of Yerevan. The diplomat stressed that Minsk has no plans to worsen relations with Yerevan, despite the fact that "the Armenian leadership is being pushed to this by external players."

The conflict was rapidly gaining momentum. The Armenian Foreign Ministry called in Yerevan for consultations of Ambassador Razmik Khumaryan in Belarus. Minsk reacted in a mirror way — Ambassador Alexander Konyuk was recalled for consultations.

The Foreign Ministry of the Transcaucasian republic sent a protest note to Belarus the next day, on June 14, after statements by the country's Foreign Ministry spokesman Anatoly Glaze. The Armenian side considered his statements "interference in the internal affairs of Armenia."

"The desire to have leaders who would think about the future of their country can only come from someone who has it himself. In the case of Belarus, at the moment it is truly a luxury," the official Yerevan pointed out with sarcasm.

Announcing on the eve of the recall by Belarus of its ambassador to Armenia for consultations in response to a similar step by Yerevan, the representative of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry said that "we all see how difficult the internal political situation is developing in Armenia today, how the confrontation inside the country is rapidly escalating, and different people, of course, have different resistance to serious emotional stress.". At the same time, they expressed respect for the Armenian people and "sincere desire for leaders who will really think about the future of the country and the welfare of people."

How did Lukashenka upset Pashinyan so much? At a meeting with Ilham Aliyev in May, the Belarusian leader told about a conversation with his Azerbaijani counterpart before, in his words, the "liberation war" in Karabakh. According to the results of that communication, again according to the head of Belarus, the parties "came to the conclusion that it is possible to win the war."

"I also thought, I remembered our conversation before the war, before your liberation war, when we talked philosophically at dinner together. Then we came to the conclusion that it is possible to win the war. This is important. It is very important to keep this victory," Lukashenko said.

After that, speaking in the Parliament of the republic on May 22, Nikol Pashinyan stated that "at least two countries of the Collective Security Treaty Organization took part in the preparations for the 44-day war in Karabakh in 2020, acting not on the side of Armenia." Obviously, in addition to Belarus, he also had in mind Russia…

Neither Yerevan nor Minsk suffer any special economic losses as a result of the conflict. The cessation of political contacts has not yet led to any significant consequences for mutual trade. The bilateral trade turnover was already not distinguished by an impressive volume — according to the Armenian side, last year it amounted to $ 181.6 million, having decreased by almost 3% compared to 2022.

In the military-technical plane, serious negative developments should also not be expected. In fact, this part of the Armenian-Belarusian relations has been in a frozen state for the past few years, while even before the 44-day war in Karabakh, Minsk gained a fairly active pace of developing ties with Baku in the arms sector, supplying it, for example, multiple launch rocket systems "Polonaise" and other military equipment, used by Azerbaijan on the battlefield. So, in November 2020 in A video was published online, which allegedly demonstrated the operation of the electronic warfare systems (EW) of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces in combat conditions — the "jamming" of the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army air defense system by Azerbaijani troops. It was claimed that thanks to the "unidentified" electronic warfare system of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces, the air defense systems in service with Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia, including the Osa, Tor and S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems, were "successfully suppressed and destroyed." According to experts, it could be the Belarusian Groza complexes and their modifications.

Another thing is the political component of the conflict between two nominal allies in the regional system of collective security. There was a situation of a rupture of relations between the participants of three leading integration associations in the post—Soviet space at once - the CIS, the EAEU and the CSTO. The reputational costs of these organizations against the background of the Armenian-Belarusian confrontation are not critical for any of these associations. However, mutual antagonism has made its way out among their participants, which cannot but cause concern. Situational crises of a bilateral nature between the leaders of the Commonwealth have taken place, and more than once. Let us recall at least the very difficult relations between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan against the background of their territorial disputes, which in September 2022 led to a large-scale armed conflict and dozens of victims on both sides. However, never before have the parties to such fleeting conflicts turned to a deliberately demonstrative instrument of showing signs of attention at the official level to the domestic political opponents of their counterparts. And Yerevan did this by contacting the so-called "leader of the Belarusian opposition" Svetlana Tikhanovskaya in the West. Thus, it can be stated that a dangerous precedent has been set in the CIS space.

Nikol Pashinyan never became "one of his own" in the club of the first persons of the Commonwealth. Even before the military failure in Karabakh, the leader of the "velvet revolution" felt a certain discomfort when communicating with some colleagues from the former Soviet republics. After 2020, this feeling only grew, intensified by accumulated resentment due to, as the current Armenian leadership believes, insufficient support of the allies during and after the war with Azerbaijan.

It can be assumed that Pashinyan was looking for an excuse to make his insults demonstrative and at the same time "take revenge" on some CSTO allies for their position at the organization's summit on November 23, 2022 in Yerevan, when they refrained from condemning ("a clearly formulated political assessment," as the Armenian prime minister said at the summit, where he chaired) the Azerbaijani invasion of Armenian territory in September of the same year, and before that — in May and November 2021. Such an occasion presented itself in May-June of this year, when the above-mentioned memories came flooding back to Lukashenko in Azerbaijan, admittedly, in fact, quite offensive to the Armenian side.

Nevertheless, it is another extreme to expect the sometimes overly talkative Belarusian leader to apologize to the Armenian people. Lukashenko may have said inappropriate things, but he didn't insult anyone to ask for forgiveness. Nagorno-Karabakh was never recognized by Armenia itself before, during, or after the 44-day war. Therefore, it looks naive to expect from the president of Belarus that he will be more Armenian than Pashinyan himself and will not publicly expand on the topic of his painful conversations with Aliyev painful for Yerevan.

Lukashenko in Yerevan is decidedly not favored after the "velvet revolution" of 2018. His resonant statement in February 2022 that Armenia "has nowhere to go" and its path lies without alternative in The Union state with Russia and Belarus made a lot of noise then.

Another thing is the attitude in To the President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in Yerevan. According to our interlocutors in the Armenian capital, he enjoys great respect among the top officials of the Transcaucasian republic. One of the signs of political sympathy is the negotiations held on May 10-11 in Almaty on the initiative of the Kazakh leader between the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan on the development of an agreement "On the establishment of peace and interstate relations."

Unfortunately, the outlook for the Armenian-Belarusian relations is negative. Signs of a political thaw are not visible, the recalled ambassadors to Minsk and Yerevan "do not even think of returning." Ahead of the indefinite duration of the difficult cohabitation of the two countries in integration associations, the question of the "uselessness" of some of which (talking about the CSTO) has already been raised by the Armenian authorities.