Russia may postpone aiding Armenia in its fight against Azerbaijan in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, leaving the country at a political and military disadvantage, Robert M. Cutler, a fellow of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, wrote in Foreign Policy on Friday.
Russia and Armenia are traditional allies that have a defence pact. However, Cutler said Moscow also wishes to bolster relations with Azerbaijan and preserve its influence in the South Caucasus.
The scholar highlighted Russia’s reluctance to support Armenia outside of military resupplying due to its distaste for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who criticised Armenia’s dependence on Russia when he was in the political opposition.
One of Pashinyan’s pre-election promises when he came to power following a series of anti-government protests that unseated a Moscow-friendly administration was to reduce Armenia’s reliance on Russia.
“It is possible that Moscow will wait until Azerbaijan achieves certain territorial gains to weaken Pashinyan in Armenia and then use its own influence in (the capital) Yerevan to oust him and install another Armenian leader more pliable to Russia’s wishes,” Cutler said.
He said Pashinyan’s shift to irredentist nationalism – required to survive in Armenian domestic politics – was credited to his failure to deliver on pre-elections promises that would have improved Armenia’s isolated socio-economic situation and heavy dependence on Russia.
“Trapped there, he seems then to have fallen hostage to his own nationalist rhetoric, which has in turn strengthened domestic Armenian populism and militarism,” Cutler said. “This irredentist nationalism finally touched not just the Nagorno-Karabakh issue – which Pashinyan, like his predecessors, politically manipulated – but extended to other neighbours beyond Azerbaijan.”
The Armenian prime minister began making territorial claims against Azerbaijan, and on Aug. 5, he publicly declared that “Nagorno-Karabakh is Armenia, and that is all”, according to Cutler.
“In words akin to a verbal annexation, he declared that the territories were part of Armenia itself,” he said.
“No Armenian politician had said that since the war in the early 1990s, first because it was political dynamite – since the territory was internationally recognized to be part of Azerbaijan – and second because Armenia sought to maintain the fig leaf of independence of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic from Armenia proper.”
The mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh region is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but controlled by ethnic Armenians seeking to separate from the country, sparking a decades-long dispute over the breakaway state.
Cutler pointed to Azeri threats to use force in the region before the fighting erupted on Sept. 27, as a last resort if the peace process were exhausted.
Azerbaijan’s resort to force finally occurred after Armenia completely “discarded” the Madrid Principles, he said.
The Madrid Principles is a peace settlement proposed by the OSCE Minsk Group, co-chaired by Russia, the United States and France, which called for the Karabakh government to return seven districts to Azerbaijan and allow displaced Azeris to their former places of residence, in return for guarantees of self-governance and security.
Russia would accomplish several objectives by ousting Pashinyan, Cutler said.
“It would keep the conflicting parties on a short leash by perpetuating a lingering conflict, thus maintaining the Kremlin’s clout in the region while earning some points with Azerbaijan, with which it enjoys generally good relations,” he said.
“Moreover, it would punish the so-called revolutionary and unpredictable Pashinyan for overstepping Armenia’s historic role as a client state of Russia.”ahvalnew