Pashinyan`s pro-Turkish intention and Russian blackmail

Russia fears that "Armenia will go to Europe through Turkey." The headline in Gazeta.Ru reads, "Armenia is leaving the orbit of Russian influence through the Turkish window to Europe." There is a reason for this fear. At the government meeting, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan again expressed his desire to settle relations with Turkey without preconditions. His predecessors also told the same, but this year the situation is radically different.

In 1993, Turkey closed its border with Armenia and severed relations with it due to the occupation of neighboring territories with Nagorno-Karabakh by Yerevan. In November 2020, Armenia was forced to withdraw the army from there, and although the ceasefire agreement was not signed by President Erdogan, he was invisibly present in the signing process.

Turkey also advocates the opening of borders, since R.T. Erdogan proposed to create a "platform of six", together with Armenia. "If positive steps are taken in this direction, we will open our closed doors" for Armenia, the Turkish President said in Baku on December 10.

In January, the Washington Post reported the words of an unnamed adviser to Erdogan: Ankara is ready to "normalize relations with Armenia." “The occupation of the territory of Azerbaijan by Armenia has always been a problem for us. It has now been resolved. If Armenia is ready to take a step, we are ready."

Yerevan political scientist Beniamin Matevosyan speaks about Pashinyan's intention to "leave through Turkey". He recalls that in his youth, Pashinyan was a supporter of Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who considered Armenia's relations with Turkey the key ones.

Unlike the first president of Armenia, the next - R. Kocharian and especially Serge Sargsyan, considered it possible to develop their country without cooperation with Turkey and Azerbaijan. Sargsyan even said - let us imagine that there is nothing on the eastern side of us.

Ter-Petrosyan's argument was the forced dependence of Armenia on Russia if threats from Turkey and Azerbaijan persisted. Pashinyan came to power with different slogans, among which was the achievement of real independence, without subordination to the Kremlin. Having removed the threat from the Turkic states, Armenia can refuse to maintain the 102nd Russian base in Gyumri and withdraw Russian border guards from the country.

However, after removing the Turkic threat, Pashinyan receives a Russian threat instead. Russian Turkologist Viktor Nadein-Raevsky says that by opening the border with Turkey, Armenia can increase economic income, but will lose territory.

The territorial blackmail of Armenia is present in many statements by Russian and Armenian experts who repeat them who say that if Russia withdraws its peacekeepers from Karabakh in 2025, the Armenians will leave after them. Karabakh will be lost for Armenia forever.

In 2025, the five-year term of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Azerbaijan ends. If six months before the end of this period President Aliyev does not address Moscow with a statement on the need to complete or extend to complete the peacekeeping mission, the Russian army is to leave Karabakh.

Kamal Ali