2024-07-31 19:26:42
Author: Elchin Alioglu, Trend
If in the 1990s, Armenia was completely dependent on one sponsor and benefactor, now there are only a few powers that give instructions to Yerevan what, when and how to do.
Nikol Pashinyan, who tries to sit on several ketils at the same time, has to perform very complex acrobatic etudes.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who went to Tehran to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezishkian, was received yesterday by Iran’s supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
At the meeting, A. Khamenei said: “Foreigners cannot be allowed to create restrictions against their neighbors in the South Caucasus region. The security and prosperity of the countries is ensured with reference to themselves and their relatives.”
Iran’s supreme religious leader has clearly stated to N. Pashinyan that the West wants to impose restrictions on Armenia’s relations with Iran, and these obstacles apply especially to defense and security areas.
Official Tehran is more geopolitical, political, economic, financial, military, etc. in the territory of Armenia. he intends to gain influence, especially to strengthen his presence.
Yerevan does not accept Tehran’s “offers”, or rather, it cannot, because it will not be able to explain its behavior and decisions to the USA, France and the European Union.
In the early days of the First Karabakh War, in the 1990s, when Armenia started the process of occupying 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territories, it had one sponsor and patron – Russia, ruled by Boris Yeltsin.
B. Yelst’s government presented a large amount of weapons and military equipment to Armenia, fully armed the Armenian army, and tried to normalize the collapsed economy of Yerevan.
Later, Iran, France and the USA joined the struggle for control of Armenia. By creating the Minsk Group of the OSCE, which France and the United States declared to be aimed at settling the Karabakh conflict through peaceful negotiations, they included Russia as a co-chair country in this structure and thus worked to manage the processes in the South Caucasus through Armenia.
The main goal was to preserve the status quo, to force Azerbaijan to sign a humiliating “peace agreement”, to preserve the separatist-terrorist regime in Karabakh, and thus acquire a means of permanent pressure on Baku.
The “negotiations” within the framework of the Minsk Group for 30 years did not and could not bring any results.
Instead, in those years, a serious competition for the control of Armenians began between the United States, Iran and France.
Iran, despite all its efforts, lost in this conflict, but did not retreat.
It is interesting that the supreme leader of Iran, A. Khamenei, said an expensive idea in the meeting with N. Pashinyan yesterday.
“Iran is still of the opinion that the Zangezur Corridor idea does not meet the interests of Armenia,” said Iran’s supreme religious leader.
He emphasized the importance of Armenia’s territorial integrity and noted that Armenian-Iranian relations will develop on the basis of mutual interests regardless of the politics of other countries. He also added that foreign states should not interfere in relations between neighboring states.
Nikol Pashinyan, hoping not to spoil the relations with Iran completely and, most importantly, not to “irritate” the chauvinists and nationalists in the country to an extreme degree, as well as to get more preferences from the West, Nikol Pashinyan presented the project “Peace Road” that will “turn Armenia into an intersection of transregional and international transport and logistics routes”. .
Later, the Secretary of the Security Council of Armenia Armen Grigoryan came up with an “alternative proposal” and proposed the Gazakh-Icevan route instead of the Zangezur corridor.
Samantha Power, director of the USAID, said during her visit to Yerevan that “Washington will allocate the necessary funds for the development of Armenia’s transport strategy.”
As it can be seen, it is not they, but the forces trying to control Yerevan that determine what meets the interests of Armenia and what is against the interests of Armenians.
“Iran still believes that the idea of the Zangezur Corridor does not meet the interests of Armenia” and “We think that the signing of the peace agreement as soon as possible meets the interests of Armenia.” it’s different, it’s clear, I don’t see the need to list them” in the same vein as “Using Armenia as a tool is against its interests”.
If the first statement belongs to the supreme religious leader of Iran, the authors of the subsequent statements are US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, European Commission Chairman Ursula von der Leyen, French President Emmanuel Macron and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Tehran, Washington, Brussels, Paris, Moscow – they “determine” Yerevan’s interests, and each of them considers itself the “security guarantor” of Armenia.
Let’s remind once again that if in the 1990s, Armenia voluntarily “gifted” its sovereignty and independence to Russia, after its defeat and capitulation in the 44-day Second Karabakh War, Yerevan auctioned off the remains of its independence. Nikol Pashinyan wanted to support the separatism of the Karabakh Armenians, protect their power and ensure the security of their power in exchange for control levers over Armenia.
After Armenians from Karabakh left Azerbaijan en masse and voluntarily went to Armenia, one of the means considered important by Yerevan at the level of geopolitical auction came to nothing.
Instead, the obligations of the Armenian authorities to the “protectors” remained for that “means”.
The allocation of 65 million dollars of aid by the United States to Armenia in the new financial year is one of the events in the mentioned course.
Nikol Pashinyan’s administration’s pro-Western policy and, especially after the autumn of 2023, accelerated and intensified contacts with Washington, Paris and Brussels created an illusion in the United States that the geopolitical map of the South Caucasus can be reshaped. Washington hopes that putting pressure on Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia and keeping them in a constant state of tension will allow the United States to acquire the role of the main power center in the region, turn the authorities in Tbilisi and Yerevan into puppets, and minimize the influence of other geopolitical powers on the region.
Unfortunately, the current government of Armenia gives the functions of controlling the country’s sovereignty and state management institutions to the “protectors”, i.e. the Washington-Parsi-Brussels trio. It has come to the point that the majority of Armenians have formed very dangerous and at the same time completely false illusions about the fact that this trio is also engaged in the protection and security of the country.
The $65 million aid allocated by the Americans is not an important financial resource for Armenia, which has a significant budget deficit due to its rapid armament, despite the fact that it receives a large amount of income due to the use of Russia as a transit export and import space to avoid numerous sanctions imposed by the West.
But the important thing is not the amount, but the desire and effort. Washington wants to get Yerevan to act on the basis of direct instructions from outside, which will try to increase the volume of foreign financial aid by gradually getting Armenia used to the “doping” of financial aid and subsidies.
Since the process of remilitarization is going on in Armenia and the West is rapidly arming the remnants of the Armenian army, trying to turn them into normal armed forces, “defense” spending is an important part of Armenia’s state budget.
Armenia, which is rapidly arming itself, of course, causes the deterioration of stability and security in the entire South Caucasus, and the artificial strengthening of destructive tendencies.
Armenia, which easily agrees to station the troops of the European Union, the United States, and especially France, and conducts joint military exercises with the Americans, supplies large quantities of weapons and military equipment from Greece, France, Belgium, and India. The process has turned Armenia from a state that was once a close ally of Russia and Iran into a country that opposes Moscow and Tehran’s geopolitical interests in the region and brings subregional powers to the South Caucasus.
There is no doubt that Iran and Russia are seriously analyzing the latest initiatives, decisions and statements of Armenians. Russia and Iran will definitely consider such a position of Armenia in their geopolitical strategies regarding the South Caucasus.
In that case, what awaits Armenia – it is difficult to guess…