Armenia shatters peacekeeping initiatives: 'Witch hunt' in Yerevan

This time, the "witch hunt" targets against the "party of peace," namely, Armenian citizens who participated in joint peace initiatives with Azerbaijan, especially former Armenian Ambassador to Russia Armen Smbatian.

They cannot forgive Smbatian for his involvement in a peace initiative by intellectuals of both countries together with Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to Russia and cultural figure Polad Bulbuloglu. The Armenian media already use terms like “honorary Turk” with pro-governmental newspapers, accusing the retired diplomat of moral sins and describing him as a traitor.

There is no need to remind the reader that Armenian media are staging the "anti-Smbatian" campaign while the attitude toward Bulbuloglu’s involvement in the initiative has been unequivocally positive in Azerbaijan. This is a good reason to think about whether Baku or Yerevan shows hate toward its neighbors and xenophobia.

You can, of course, mock the fact that this criticism looks like a stone thrown at Smbatyan since he no longer represents Armenia in Russia.

Moreover, once Oleg Yesayan, former speaker of parliament of the "so-called" “NKR,” was appointed ambassador to Russia, this peacekeeping initiative was almost shattered. Skilled negotiators say that once there is a need to engage in a dialogue across the front line, it would be better to divide the potential and actual counterparts into two categories: those with whom you can speak and those with whom you cannot.

Unfortunately, Yesayan belongs to the second category unlike Smbatyan. One needs to admit that Yesayan is one of those separatists who slaughtered the peaceful Azerbaijani population, women, elderly and children without mercy. How can one negotiate with these people?

And finally and most importantly, normal states need to react to the “arbitrariness” of a diplomat immediately. Armenia knows this better than anyone else. Suffice it to recall how the U.S. withdrew its ambassador to Armenia John Evans immediately after the latter expressed at a meeting with representatives of the Armenian diaspora in California his "personal opinion" about the events of 1915, forcing him to publicly disavow his "personal opinion".

After trips to Karabakh with Bulbuloglu, Smbatyan officially represented Armenia in Russia for a quite long period of time still being committed to his peacekeeping initiatives. I short, it is untimely to curse the former rector of the Yerevan Conservatory … if you do not take into account one thing.

This campaign is taking place on the backdrop of an apparent revival of diplomatic efforts to resolve the Karabakh problem: Turkish PM Erdogan trips to Moscow, who had previously promised to raise the issue of Karabakh in the negotiations, Lavrov heads to Yerevan, then Serzh Sargsyan is leaving for Moscow and finally Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents meet in Sochi ... Many signs give grounds to say that today the main pressure is put on Yerevan, whose non-constructive position blocks progress in a dialogue with Azerbaijan and Turkey.

It is no secret that a compromise with Azerbaijan and Turkey is too risky for Yerevan's "party of peace.” Because the people who today form the Yerevan political establishment, instigated the Karabakh conflict twenty years ago and were personally involved in the killings, ethnic cleansing, looting ... Sargsyan's election campaign was built on ultra-military slogans from the outset and president’s innner circles understand better than anyone else how bad implications the transition from the "hawks" to the "doves" may have especially if the political situation is quite difficult and the power has no "safety margin" as it would like to have.

Illegal "business" in the occupied lands, pillage of natural resources,  drug plantations and terrorist camps remain major financial and economic provider of the Karabakh clan. In such a situation Sargsyan and Ohanyan will unlikely agree to withdraw troops from occupied Azerbaijani lands, without which the dialogue will not advance.

The Armenian authorities face not only outside pressure. They encounter more serious and terrible pressure  from inside the country. Of course, the population would like to heed the cries of "self-determination" and "the triumph of the Armenian cause" with deep gratitude and patriotic pride. But they cannot easily dismiss a simple reality like economy. For example, if it declines 15 percent, people feel it not only in their pocket, purse, but also in stomach.

More and more people have begun to ask questions unpleasant for the authorities: Is the reckless Karabakh scheme too costly for Armenia? Moreover, simple truth is more and more evident that Armenia has much less chances to win than claimed by the country’s officials. The conflict is prolonged, the negotiations are stalled. Armenia remains at an impasse both a literal and figurative sense, as pipelines and railways are already bypassing the "suffering Christian outpost.”

Simply put, today Armenia's economy is gradually shifting to the "model" of the Gaza Strip, where any legal business is impossible in principle and only chance to survive is to receive government handouts in the form of a tiny piece of external financial assistance. Exactly this "model" of the economy operated in Nagorno-Karabakh with its terrorist dictatorship. The "Karabakh clan” transfers the same way of survival to Yerevan.

On this backdrop, the Armenian authorities really have no other choice but to arrange reprisals against those who call for compromise. Yerevan was not scared at Smbatian’s “arbitrariness." They were afraid of a peace in which politicians like Sargsyan and Ohanyan do not have even a theoretical chance to be in demand.

Nurani
Day.Az writer