Pashinyan lacks expertise in Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
By Abdul Kerimkhanov
After assuming power in 2018, Armenian Prime Minister faced a number of problems due to his incompetence and inexperience as a politician.
The newly-elected prime minister initially complained that he was unaware of the details of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and wowed to start studying it.
For several months, he allegedly studied the course of the negotiation process and the position of Armenia, after which he announced that he had stumbled upon the facts of betrayal of the previous Armenian authorities with regards to the negotiations with Azerbaijan. In fact, he did everything to hide his own incompetence.
Apparently, Pashinyan failed to understand what the conflict was about and what was really happening surrounding the Nagorno-Karabakh negotiations. This ignorance resulted in his controversial statement made on August 5 in occupied Khankendi. Pashinyan declared that Karabakh was Armenia and called for annexation of Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region to Armenia. Any competent politician who understands the balance of power in the region, knows that it’s impossible to annex Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia.
Being ignorant about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Pashinyan deems ignorant other as well, for instance, Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Thus, during the CIS Summit of the Heads of States Council in Ashgabat on October 11, 2019, Pashinyan approached Putin and handed him "Peace to Karabakh" book by the ex-OSCE Minsk Group co-chair Vladimir Kazimirov.
Explaining his act, Pashinyan later said in his Facebook account that he had gifted this book to the President of Russia. He also added that Kazimirov dealt with the Nagorno-Karabakh problem in 1992-1996, and made great efforts to acheive a cease-fire agreement in 1994. In Pashinyan's words, he allegedly testifies to a number of important nuances of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in his book, "which are forgotten today". Thus, Pashinyan was going to enlighten Putin on the issue, believing that Putin "did not know the truth", otherwise he would have long ago resolved the conflict in favor of Armenia. Now, in his opinion, Putin has a book and can solve the conflict.
Pashinyan believes that having read the book, Putin will immediately order the so-called representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh to sit at the negotiating table, and the process will return to the situation at the time of signing of the ceasefire in 1994. However, times are changing, and the speculations that Kazimirov conveyed in the early 1990s went to history and cannot possibly influence the course of negotiations or somehow change their format.
According to the peace deal proposed by Kazimirov, Armenia must retain control over Nagorno-Karabakh since it won the war and because of its loyalty to Russia in the early 1990s. The surrounding seven Azerbaijani regions, however, must be returned to Azerbaijan, under the condition that the Russian military base is stationed in those regions. Moreover, the Russian peacekeeping mission must be financed by Baku.
Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94
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