"Pashinyan impasse": Azerbaijan got everything, Armenia got nothing: Armenian expert

How can Vladimir Putin's visit to Azerbaijan affect the region as a whole and Armenia in particular, as evidenced by the words of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov about the responsibility of the Armenian authorities for the fact that communications in the region have not yet been opened," political analyst Beniamin Matevosyan told IAC VERELQ.

"In my opinion, several important components can be noted in President Putin's visit to Azerbaijan. First of all, apparently, the Azerbaijani authorities are trying to occupy the niche that has been vacant since the Armenian authorities began to carry out a strategic turn from Russia towards Turkey, not even the West. Azerbaijan is trying to become the state that, to a certain extent, can be called the operator of Russian interests in the South Caucasus.

Another question is whether this will work out or not, especially in the context of the fact that if we compare the information policy of the Azerbaijani and Armenian authorities, we can see that practically even at the level of narratives everything repeats itself. But in any case, we will fix the fact that at the moment Russia and Azerbaijan have more points of contact than pro—Turkish Armenia," the political scientist states, and notes another important nuance.:

"Secretary of the Russian Security Council Sergei Shoigu recently visited Azerbaijan. Before that, he visited the Islamic Republic of Iran. If Armenia had at least some kind of subjectivity to be reckoned with, we can say with confidence that the head of the Security Council would have visited Armenia. However, we see that this did not happen. In other words, the loss of Armenia's subjectivity is already very great. The very near future will show how Putin's visit to Azerbaijan will affect this process."

Commenting on the words of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who blamed the Armenian authorities for the fact that communications in the region are not open, the expert stressed:

"In fact, what Sergey Lavrov said about the Armenian side sabotaging the 9th clause of the November 9 agreement is true. Returning to the same notorious information policy in Armenia — after all, people affiliated with the authorities did not hide that the same Lachin corridor in Artsakh was commissioned only so that there would be no transport corridor through the territory of Armenia, where the forces of the border service of the FSB of the Russian Federation would be present. In this context, it should be said that Lavrov gave a very accurate description of the events taking place.

However, in fairness, it should be said that Pashinyan would not have had the opportunity to sabotage the November 9 agreement if he did not have the full support of Azerbaijan. The agreement of November 9 was sabotaged by both Armenia and official Baku, and they have been doing so since November 10, 2020.

A simple example: the fact that the Azerbaijani troops somehow ended up on the Goris-Kapan road, although the agreement of November 9 stipulated that the parties should remain in the positions they occupied at the time of the end of hostilities. And so, we can go through the rest of the items.

To this day, the Azerbaijani side continues to hold hostages in captivity, who found themselves in this position following the results of the 44-day war. In other words, both the Republic of Armenia and Azerbaijan sabotaged the November 9 agreement."

According to Matevosyan, the Russian authorities should understand that the agreement of November 9 would have continued to exist if not for the position of the authorities of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

In this vein, it is necessary to build a subsequent policy, realizing that the points of support for the Russian Federation are in the South Caucasus or in Transcaucasia does not really exist, no matter how the Azerbaijani authorities try to convince President Putin personally of the opposite.

As for the information that Yerevan and Baku agreed to postpone the solution of the issue of transport communications in the region, in particular, ensuring Azerbaijan's connection with Nakhichevan, and not to link it with the signing of a peace treaty, then, according to Matevosyan:

"This only means that the Crossroads of the World project has finally turned into the Pashinyan Impasse project. Let's not forget, as they say, what we have gathered for.

What did Pashinyan talk about in 2021 during the election campaign? That the most important thing for Armenia will be the unblocking of transport communications. As a result, it turns out that after the elections in 2021, Azerbaijan received Karabakh, captured the military-political leadership of Karabakh. And, apparently, Azerbaijan will try to use the testimony of these people against the Republic of Armenia in the future, as they used Arayik Harutyunyan's interview, as a result of which we received the so-called "delimitation" in Tavush region, which was nothing more than the surrender of the territory of the Republic of Armenia.

As a result, it turns out that, having also received the so-called peace treaty, Armenia will not receive the unblocking of communications. Then what did the whole process that the Armenian authorities have launched since 2021 serve? As a result, it turns out that Azerbaijan got everything, Armenia got nothing. First of all, he (Pashinyan) failed to realize his election promises."

According to the political scientist, Azerbaijan, unlike the Armenian authorities, operates in several directions. On the one hand, there is a statement that the parties agreed to discuss a number of issues for the period after the signing of the peace treaty, including unblocking communications, or, as representatives of official Baku call it, the "Zangezur corridor".

However, on the other hand, information pressure from Azerbaijan does not stop in search of, in their opinion, "legitimate reasons" to resolve issues related to Armenia by military means, including obtaining extraterritorial communications.

"Add to the statements the recently disseminated misinformation that the Azerbaijani side is acting within the framework of two plans. Plan A is to get everything the Azerbaijani side wants from Armenia after the next parliamentary elections in Armenia in 2027, constantly increasing pressure.

Plan B — if, in Azerbaijan's opinion, Nikol Pashinyan again disrupts the agreements reached, he will "solve" all the issues that Azerbaijan has regarding Armenia by military means. This, in my opinion, is the reality," Beniamin Matevosyan sums up.