Armenian PM's belated repentance - analysis

By Parvin Mirzazade

The head of the government of Armenia, Nikol Vovayevich Pashinyan, who for a long time promised the Armenian public to share "sensational" details and the reasons for the defeat in the Second Karabakh War, finally found time in his "extremely" busy work schedule and spoke at the hearings in the National Assembly (parliament) of the countries. Probably, one could not comment on the speech of Mr. Pashinyan, since he did not say anything "new and secret", he only tried to justify himself for the defeat and failure, blaming everything on his predecessors, as well as on the fact that they say Azerbaijan won the war because of having the support of Turkiye. As always, Nikol Vovaevich, in the best traditions of his main profession, journalism, painted rosy pictures of "peace-loving" Armenia.

If we leave aside all the groans, sighs and tears of the Armenian prime minister on the irrevocably lost Azerbaijani territories, then we can conclude that neither he, nor his colleagues in the government, nor his opponents from the opposition have drawn the necessary conclusions from the results of the past war and continue to live with illusions about a possible rematch in the future.

After listening to the speech of Mr. N. Pashinyan, who insolently and quite frankly flaunted that he personally led the actions of the Armenian army during the entire Second Karabakh War in the occupied Azerbaijani territory, I would like to ask a question both to the head of the Armenian government and to his foreign patrons who are pouring now "crocodile tears" for losing Armenia: what about the statements of Mr. Pashinyan and the Armenian Foreign Ministry, in which they swear to the whole world that there are no units of the Armenian armed forces on Azerbaijani territory, where Russian peacekeepers are temporarily stationed, and there were none, but all this parts of some mythical "artsakh defense army" protecting the "oppressed" Armenian population of the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan?

Speaking about his "merits" in the course of leading the armed forces during the war, Nikol Vovayevich went into such a rage that even in a fit of revelation he gave out a figure for the number of units of the Armenian armed forces (25 thousand), which were located in the Aghdam direction, from where they were waiting all the time offensive of the Azerbaijani army. Flaunting his "knowledge" in the field of military tactics and strategy (which he apparently acquired during the "velvet revolution" of May 2018), the prime minister proudly noted that he was "forced" to sign the tripartite Declaration on November 10 (in Armenian version November 9) 2020, after the Azerbaijani army freed the city of Shusha in order to save these Armenian soldiers from captivity.

You listen to Mr. Pashinyan and you are directly amazed how the head of the government of Armenia, who today yells about "aggression" to the whole world, so frankly tells that the Armenian army led by him was in the occupied Azerbaijani territories and conducted military operations there, and the world community silently looked at all this and did not react. For this confession alone, Pashinyan and all his predecessors should long ago have been brought to justice and put on trial in the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which they love so much, whose intermediate decisions they like to trump lately. Absolutely nothing and no one was embarrassed, Nikol Vovayevich opened up and shared with the members of the commission his "bitter sadness" over the Azerbaijani city of Shusha "lost" by the Armenian side.

The head of the Armenian government, frankly saying, even shed a tear, saying that until the last moment he believed that the Armenian army would be able to "defend" this city, where he danced and raged back in May 2019, marking the next anniversary of Armenia's military successes in the First Karabakh War. It is noteworthy that this speech by N.Pashinyan did not cause any reaction among the guardians of international law from some Western countries and international organizations, who tear their throats with foam in their mouths and come out in defense of "long-suffering" Armenia, which Azerbaijan and Turkiye allegedly offend. These gentlemen apparently "forgot" for a while about 4 resolutions of the UN Security Council and about the decision of the Lisbon Summit of the OSCE, where it is written in black and white that the Karabakh region is an integral part of Azerbaijan, demanding the immediate withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from the occupied Azerbaijani territories, the implementation of which Armenia has ignored for decades. By chance (or not by chance), by naming the number of only part of the Armenian armed forces in the occupied Azerbaijani territories, the head of the Armenian government once again confirmed the fact that the Armenian army continues to be in the territory where peacekeepers are temporarily stationed, since the number of the Armenian population of the Karabakh region, voiced by the official Armenian propaganda of 120 thousand people, of which 30 thousand are minors (these figures, which are used by Armenian sources, are highly doubtful and clearly not reliable) do not allow having such a number in illegal armed formations, based on elementary arithmetic.

The whole tearful speech of Mr. Pashinyan was built on the topic of whitewashing the current authorities of the country, who did everything "possible" to preserve the occupied territories: they bought modern weapons, built fortifications, financed the separatists, and "lost" the war only because their predecessors plundered the country and were defeated by Azerbaijan on the diplomatic front. It is gratifying that the Armenian prime minister finally acknowledged the responsibility of the previous Armenian leaders from the "Karabakh clan" for the military defeat of Armenia and for the economic collapse in which the country has been for more than 30 years after the start of the unleashed bloody conflict. But I would like to remind you that Nikol Vovaevich, no less than they, is responsible for the fiasco of Armenia, as an occupying country.

The "sincere" confessions of the Armenian PM about the reasons for the defeat of Armenia are nothing but an ordinary cheap show, designed to fool the world community and deceive the Armenian people. All that he said about the war and the course of negotiations during the hostilities was Pashinyan's version of events, far from the truth, exposing the Armenian side in a "better" light, as a "victim of aggression", striving for peace and a ceasefire against the backdrop of "bloodthirsty" Azerbaijan, who wanted to shed only blood. Apparently, Pashinyan again "forgot" that every time during the war the ceasefire was violated by the Armenian armed forces, who tried to use this temporary respite to win back the lost territories.

Now, misleading the Armenian inhabitants and foreign patrons, the prime minister tells stories that he tried to keep at least part of the occupied territories during the war, but supposedly the "maximalist" demands of Azerbaijan did not allow him to do so.

Trying to sit on two chairs at once, Nikol Vovaevich complains that Azerbaijan did not even heed the calls of "sister" France and the United States, hinting that, having not received the expected assistance from the CSTO allies, he tried to gain support from the competing military-political bloc but all was unsuccessful. At the same time, Nikol Vovayevich literally annoyed the President of Russia V. Putin with his numerous phone calls, with requests to urgently intervene and save the defeated Armenia. For the sake of this, he left aside both his pro-Western sympathies and his ostentatious love for democracy. In the end, only the intervention of Russia, which offered its mediation services and the option of a peaceful end to the conflict, saved Armenia from a national catastrophe, and Nikol Vovayevich from shame.

Trying to justify himself for the defeat in the Second Karabakh War, the former journalist uses a professional method of throwing out a "sensation" that diverts attention from the main topic, saying that he allegedly signed the tripartite Statement on the morning of 'November 9' after receiving information that Shusha was under the control of the Azerbaijan Army, despite the fact that earlier his right hand - the chief of the general staff O.Gasparyan assured that part of the city was under the control of Armenian units.

Until recently, Armenian officials and the media tried to distance themselves from the facts of the presence of Armenian army units on the territory where peacekeepers are temporarily stationed. In their public statements, Armenian officials categorically reject the information that the remnants of the Armenian armed forces numbering almost 10 thousand people remained on the sovereign territory of Azerbaijan and presented them as Armenian residents of the Karabakh region, who allegedly belong to some kind of "Karabakh defense army", ensuring the "security" of this population. The Armenian side, from November 2020 until April 2023, took advantage of the lack of proper control on the Lachin road, supplying these military units with military equipment, fuel and ammunition.

Only after the establishment of an Azerbaijani border crossing point (BCP) at the entrance to the Lachin road, it was possible to interrupt this illegal supply. The installation of a BCP on the road by the Azerbaijan's State Border Services in no way violates any obligations assumed by Azerbaijan under the tripartite Statement of November 10, 2020 and is fully consistent with international law, where ensuring the security of the borders of an independent state is the sovereign right of the country's government. The attempts of Armenian propaganda to present the installation of the Azerbaijani checkpoint on the conventional border line at the entrance to the Lachin road as "illegal" are completely untenable, since paragraph 6 of the tripartite Statement contains Azerbaijan's obligation to ensure the safety of this road.

The pitiful attempts of Armenian propaganda aimed at misleading the world community with the Armenian interpretation of this document prove that Yerevan is trying, under the guise of "humanitarian aid", to organize the supply of military units "accidentally forgotten" in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. However, the "sincere confessions" of Mr.Pashinyan, in which he confirms the presence of the Armenian army led by him on the territory of Azerbaijan, should not be ignored by international mediators and international organizations when assessing the situation in the region and preparing their proposals for a peace agreement. Surely, as additional evidence of the illegal presence of Armenian military personnel on the territory of Azerbaijan, the information on social networks of relatives of these servicemen who are worried about their fate and the fact that there are almost 3,000 graves of those killed during the Second Karabakh War at the Yerablur military cemetery can also serve. The very fact that on June 1, 2023, the President of Armenia Vahagn Khachaturian awarded (posthumously) the commander of the artillery battalion of the Armenian armed forces, Lieutenant Colonel Karen Hakobyan, who died in the 44-day war in October 2020, as well as the terrorists convicted by Azerbaijani courts, are citizens of Armenia, captured during sabotage at the end of November 2020 are irrefutable evidence of the illegal presence of the Armenian army on Azerbaijani territory.

All these facts indicate that no matter how hard the Armenian side tries to present all these concrete evidence of Armenian aggression as a "struggle for self-determination" of the Armenian inhabitants of Karabakh, the facts are a stubborn thing. All sorts of statements by Armenian officials that they say that during the war and after it there are no Armenian soldiers on the territory of Azerbaijan and there were not, but only some "volunteers" who went to "defend" their fellow tribesmen on the territory of another sovereign state (the territorial integrity of which Armenia allegedly recognized it back in December 1991), show the absolute lie of official Yerevan. No matter how hard Nikol Vovayevich tries to "get off" in front of the eyes of the world community from the fact of Armenia's aggression against Azerbaijan.

On the one hand, he insists that Armenia has nothing to do with it, it was the "artsakhians" who seized Azerbaijani territories in 1992-1993, and on the other hand, he tells how he was concerned about the advance of the Azerbaijani army in the previously occupied Jabrayil region of Azerbaijan in October 2020, how he gave the order to stop this offensive, and now he brought the defeated generals of the Armenian army to justice, trying to blame them for all the military failures of the Second Karabakh War.

The complete absence of logic in the words and deeds of the head of the Armenian government, with a hint of a split personality. Having repented before the commission, Pashinyan returned to his office to once again try to fish in troubled waters, when at all his meetings with representatives of foreign countries and international organizations he accuses Azerbaijan of "blockade" of Armenia and the Armenian population of the Karabakh region, literally pleads intervene and stand on the Armenian side, contrary to international law, which specifically states that any foreign mission can arrive on the territory of a foreign state only with the consent of that country.

Thus, the latest confessions of PM Pashinyan once again fully confirmed the facts of Armenia's undisguised aggression against Azerbaijan, which Armenian propaganda is constantly trying to pass off as a desire to ensure the "rights and security" of the Armenian population of the Karabakh region. Not without reason, speaking on June 23, 2023 at the ceremony of presenting the Battle Flag to one of the newly created commando units of the Azerbaijan Army, Supreme Commander-in-Chief, President Ilham Aliyev once again stressed that if Armenia really wants peace, then it must immediately withdraw its military units from the Karabakh region and recognize in writing, unconditionally the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, so that later it would not renounce its promises.

As President Ilham Aliyev said, "if the negotiations remain fruitless, then we will use force to liberate our historical lands." Probably, in Yerevan they will finally understand that the head of the Azerbaijani state does not throw words into the wind and will draw the appropriate conclusions before it is too late. After all, the leadership of Armenia has less and less time to accept any peace initiatives from Azerbaijan.