Modern Diplomacy: Pashinyan’s passive response served to whet Aliyev’s appetite

PanARMENIAN.Net - Independent analyst Hrair Balian believes that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s passive response to Azerbaijan's actions has served to whet Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s appetite.

Balian said in a new article published on Modern Diplomacy that the Armenian government under the leadership of Pashinyan bears the principal political responsibility for the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh.

"In September 2022, Pashinyan acknowledged the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and conceded that Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan so long as the “rights and security” of the enclave’s Armenians could be guaranteed under Azerbaijani sovereignty. While the recognition of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity is inevitable provided the border between the two countries is delineated, Pashinyan’s recognition that Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan is a gratuitous concession offered without the consent of or consultation with the enclave’s authorities. Pashinyan’s giveaway, reaffirmed repeatedly throughout 2023, closed the door to international support for the continuing de facto independence and future de Jure recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh’s independence," Balian says.

"As a populist leader, Pashinyan was likely responding to the wishes of a segment of Armenia’s population fatigued by decades of war with Azerbaijan. These wishes corresponded with the U.S. and E.U. mediators’ preference for a quick solution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict."

For the past year, Balian argues, Pashinyan was reorienting Armenia’s security umbrella from Russia to the West, naively hoping to earn the U.S. and E.U. mediators’ support in the ongoing negotiations with Azerbaijan.

"Ultimately, Pashinyan had nothing to show for his reorientation and concessions beyond toothless expressions of concern, condemnations, and sympathies. The U.S. and E.U. mediators supported Azerbaijan’s stance regarding the conflict under the veneer of defending its territorial integrity. Pashinyan’s passive response served to whet Aliyev’s appetite and to turn his considerable military arsenal against Armenia, demanding parts of the country’s southern Zankezur or Syunik district, which Aliyev falsely calls “Western Azerbaijan”.," he says.

"Nagorno-Karabakh’s leadership as well has responsibility for the debacle. The U.S., France, and Russia, jointly within the context of the OSCE Minsk Group, advanced comprehensive proposals, among others the Madrid Principles in 2008, to prolong indefinitely the de facto independent status of the enclave and eventually to submit its right to self-determination to a referendum. The Nagorno-Karabakh authorities imprudently rejected the proposal because it required the return of territories around the enclave occupied temporarily in 1994 as a security buffer. Other opportunities were also squandered.

"Following the 2020 defeat, creative compromises could have avoided the complete loss of Nagorno-Karabakh. Possibly, instead of full independence, some level of autonomy for Nagorno-Karabakh could have guaranteed the rights and security of its inhabitants under the control of their elected authorities, ultimately accepting Azerbaijan’s de jure sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh but maintaining the enclave’s de facto self-determination.

"In general, among the parties to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, compromise is concomitant to weakness. Accordingly, one party or another at different points rejected OSCE Minsk Group proposals. Thus, Azerbaijan’s disposition to accept any compromise was doubtful. Instead, Azerbaijan spent its petrodollar earnings to amass weapons purchased from Turkey, Israel, Russia, the U.S., and Europe, and trained for the day when it could solve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict by force, in its favor. Regardless, when the status quo of a violent conflict is unsustainable, advancing creative compromises could open unforeseen doors in visionary conflict resolution efforts."