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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Karabakh suicide. Armenia violated the rules of survival of small states |
| 2023-09-22 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Gevorg Miryayan [REGNUM] On September 21, Armenia celebrates Independence Day. And, by coincidence, on this day the Armenians surrender Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan, having lost in the last, one-day war. On the morning of September 21, a delegation of the Armenian population of Karabakh (which refers to the leaders of the unrecognized Republic of Artsakh) arrived in the Azerbaijani city of Yevlakh to meet with representatives of Baku, TASS reported . According to the Azerbaijani Trend agency , Karabakh representatives arrived accompanied by Russian military personnel from the peacekeeping contingent. The Azerbaijani side sent an invitation to the meeting in Yevlakh to the Stepanakert authorities at the height of the one-day war. On September 20, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s assistant on foreign policy issues, Hikmet Hajiyev, said : Baku has prepared a plan for the socio-economic reintegration of the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh. The plan was the result of the fact that the authorities of the unrecognized Artsakh (another name is the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, NKR) accepted the conditions of Azerbaijan on the morning of the same day. Units of the Armed Forces of Armenia (whose presence is denied by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan) are being withdrawn from the deployment zone of Russian peacekeepers. The Artsakh Defense Army is being disbanded and disarmed, its military equipment is being disposed of. Thus, the history of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, which was proclaimed even before the collapse of the USSR, in September 1991, should be considered completed, won, with the support of Armenia, victory in the First Karabakh War of 1992-94, but was never recognized by any state in the world, including the same Armenia. NOT PLAYING BY THE RULES The NKR delegation in Yevlakh is negotiating with the Azerbaijani side on the terms of surrender and “reintegration” into Azerbaijan, however, with a high degree of probability, there will be no reintegration. There will be an exodus of tens of thousands of Armenians from their lands - if, of course, Azerbaijan releases them. “For many decades since the beginning of the 90s, there have been wars, surges of tension, clashes - but there have also been attempts to resolve the Karabakh issue diplomatically. The issue was discussed within the framework of various associations, the UN, the OSCE. They argued in the capitals of the countries participating in the Minsk Group on Nagorno-Karabakh. As always, military force and political cunning, demonstrated by Azerbaijan, and not Armenia, won,” international political scientist and expert at the Russian International Affairs Council Elena Suponina told IA Regnum. To some, the ending of the Karabakh drama will seem strange, even unfair. However, it is quite natural, experts say. The denouement was a completely logical consequence of the mistakes that Armenia has made over the past 30 years, and especially over the last five of them. Exactly 32 years ago, on September 21, 1991, 99.5% of the population of the Armenian SSR voted in a referendum to confirm secession from the Soviet Union and the formation of an independent state. In 1994, for the first time in many centuries, the Armenians managed to expand the territory under their control - the residents of Nagorno-Karabakh, with the support of the Armenian army, were able to oust Azerbaijani troops from their lands, as well as the territories surrounding Karabakh. But no one has canceled the rules of geopolitics. Armenia was and remained a small state, which in all indicators of power (population, territory, natural resources) was inferior even to Azerbaijan, which dreamed of revenge, not to mention its ally Turkey. And this meant that in order to preserve statehood, Armenia had to follow a clear set of rules developed by the Israelis (who found themselves in approximately the same situation in 1949). The rules are very simple and can be listed briefly. Total mobilization of society. Focus on economic growth. Search for those sectors of the economy where you can earn big money in limited conditions (in the case of Armenia we were talking about a logistics semi-blockade). Concentration of the diaspora on the development of the state. Demographic growth (including by stimulating the resettlement of compatriots). Technological development of the armed forces up to the creation of nuclear weapons as an absolute means of deterrence. And, finally, complete, unconditional, unquestioning loyalty to the great power that provides security. In reality, everything was different. Armenia was never able to build an economic system - instead of a stable, developing model, it turned out to be a real oligarchy. The republic was unable to overcome large-scale corruption, due to which representatives of the diaspora very quickly lost interest in investing in this country. And they began to spend money on senseless and even to some extent humiliating lobbying of Western officials for their recognition of the fact of the Armenian Genocide in 1915. These “investments” did not contribute in any way to the development of Armenia, or the influx of citizens there (the country was experiencing depopulation - the population decreased by 17 % from 1991 to 2019 ), or strengthening the defense capability of Karabakh. The Karabakh people met the Second Karabakh War in 2020 wearing the helmets they wore in the first. HAD A FIGHT WITH AN ALLY The only rule that was observed was not to spoil relations with our ally, Russia. And even this was enough to ensure their safety. But in 2018, as a result of the coup of the year, Nikol Pashinyan came to power. The new Armenian prime minister began to purposefully purge power of pro-Russian figures and set a course for a geopolitical divorce from Moscow. Actually, this is why a campaign was launched in Armenia to discredit Russia, which “did not help defend Karabakh in 2020” (despite the fact that Armenia itself then refused to fight for the region), as well as the CSTO, “which did not protect Armenia in 2021-2022 during military conflicts with Azerbaijan” (despite the fact that Armenia did not even announce mobilization, refusing to fight with the Azerbaijanis who invaded the territory). And this anti-Russian propaganda found understanding in the Armenian society, part of which wanted to throw off the “Karabakh burden”, but at the same time blame someone else for it. “Armenia, in principle, abandoned Karabakh a long time ago. Pashinyan was not going to provide assistance to Karabakh in 2020, and the population as a whole was not eager. There are even sentiments - that’s what you, the people of Artsakh, need,” writes Dmitry Ofitserov-Belsky, senior researcher at IMEMO RAS. The first reason, he said, was that “there was fatigue from the Karabakh clan, which had dominated Armenian politics for many years . ” And this is true - for almost 20 years (from 1998 to 2018), the country was ruled by people from Karabakh, Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan . The second reason, according to Ofitserov-Belsky, is that “the Karabakh people themselves are people with a slightly different mentality - tough, more prone to crime and, by the way, very pro-Russian . ” This is, of course, a social myth about crime - however, in general, the “Karabakh people” were really very different in mentality from the conventional “Yerevan people”. For example, it is believed that they are more hardworking and persistent (hence the half-abusive, half-respectful expression “Karabakh donkey” - that is, a stubborn, hardworking, persistent person). “MOSCOW’S WINE” AND TEHRAN’S WORRIES During the current conflict, they are again trying to make Russia guilty - simply because there were Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh who “did not stop.” And this despite the fact that Pashinyan directly stated his refusal to protect the Karabakh Armenians, and also made it clear that he was not interested in their fate at all. Instead of following the trilateral Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani plan to resolve the situation (and as a result of the stopped Second Karabakh War, Yerevan actually had in its hands a road map for settlement), Pashinyan ran to the West and at its negotiating platforms twice confirmed in writing that recognizes Karabakh as the territory of Azerbaijan without any conditions. This was, in particular, pointed out by the representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova . “There is not a word in the text about the need to ensure the rights and safety of the inhabitants of the region... This became Yerevan’s final solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. Why did Nikol Pashinyan and the Armenian authorities do exactly this, why did Paris and Brussels push official Yerevan to do this?” - Zakharova asks rhetorical questions. Now is the time to diplomatically formalize the new status quo in the region. “The status of the new regions needs to be recorded on paper, a peace agreement must be achieved between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and security guarantees must be accepted for the population of Nagorno-Karabakh,” reminds Elena Suponina. A number of external players will pursue their own interests. The Americans want to oust Russia, the Turks want to oust all external players from the region. And the Iranians want to prevent Turkish domination in the region. “There is an opinion in the Iranian expert community (it sounds quite loud) that the Islamic Republic may ultimately turn out to be the losing side. An anti-Iranian alliance will strengthen near its borders, and its goal will be the Zangezur corridor . Let me remind you that this project, which presupposes the claims of Baku and Turkey to the Armenian Syunik (Zangezur), was called in Tehran many times its “red line,” international affairs expert Abbas Juma explained to Regnum news agency . RUSSIAN HUMANITARIAN COVER Now that the end of the Karabakh conflict in favor of Azerbaijan has become an obvious fact that is changing the political alignment in the Transcaucasus, Russia faces new challenges in this region, experts say. In a situation where Pashinyan continues to be in power in Yerevan, Moscow does not have many tools to protect its interests (to ensure a stable South Caucasus and the presence of a Russian bridgehead in Armenia there). It will not be possible to outbid or convince Pashinyan - and not only because he is strictly indoctrinated. As Dmitry Ofitserov-Belsky reminds, Pashinyan is personally dependent on the West, because he understands that he will have to emigrate there in the future. Explaining to Armenians that abandoning Moscow will lead to the seizure of their country by the Turks is also not easy due to the fact that Moscow does not know how to defend its interests using “ soft power ” tools . “Our military diplomats work very well, as do peacekeepers. But what we lack is “soft power”. We didn’t have enough of it in Ukraine, in Azerbaijan, anywhere,” reminds Elena Suponina. However, the tools still exist, experts believe. Both at the highest political level and at the humanitarian level. First of all, we need to take care of the Karabakh refugees, if only because by bringing peacekeepers into Karabakh, Moscow assumed moral obligations. “Against the background of rumors about Pashinyan’s reluctance to accept refugees from Karabakh, I think it would be fair to provide refugees with the opportunity to obtain Russian citizenship in a simplified manner,” said State Duma deputy Evgeny Popov . With this step, Moscow, according to experts, could solve several problems at once. First, Russia will effectively shield itself from any accusations that it has “abandoned the Armenians it pledged to protect.” Secondly, he will demonstrate that he does not abandon his own people. It is precisely their own - Nagorno-Karabakh is (along with Transnistria) one of the most pro-Russian regions of the post-Soviet space. Thirdly, it will acquire several tens of thousands of new hardworking Christian citizens. |
| Posted by:badanov |