Pashinyan tries to hold power by raising tension in relationship with Azerbaijan - expert

Armenia has been provoking Azerbaijan since the end of the 44-day War in 2020. With the sneaking and planting of landmines in Azerbaijan's liberated territories, financing the separatist gang in Khankendi, and transferring military equipment and personnel to Garabagh, it has been able to keep tension high in its relationship with Azerbaijan over the last three years. However, two successive terror acts ended in the deaths of nine Azerbaijanis on September 19 changed everything, and Baku started the anti-terror activities.

It should be noted that the processes have attracted the special interest of foreign media representatives, think tanks and political analysts. Experts from different countries, including Turkiye, Britain, France and Pakistan, have shared their opinions on the ongoing processes.

Speaking to Azernews political scientist Dr. Imran Khalid pointed out that it appears, that terrorist activities are connected with two factors. First, it has to be understood that Pashinyan is trying to remain in power, and for this, he makes populist speeches. As is known, the best way to stay in power is to create problems and to keep the relations with Azerbaijan tense. Or to what extent, he tries to provoke Azerbaijan in the Garabagh economic region.

“The second factor is, that Russian influence on Armenia is gradually decreasing and at the same time, the influence of the USA and the West is gradually increasing. One can observe it from recent visits by Western leaders to Armenia. Even very recently, Armenian forces have held military exercises with the USA. So, all these factors have encouraged Pashinyan to take risks, and some kind of teasing activities in Garabagh. I guess, initially their plan was to start some kind of terrorist activities to test the potential response of Azerbaijan. If Azerbaijan had responded softly, they would gradually increase these terrorist activities to convert them to a kind of guerrilla war. However, to their disappointment, Azerbaijan retaliated swiftly, promptly, and solidly by launching a comprehensive operation against terrorism,” Imran Khalid noted.

He stressed that actually, Armenia did not expect it and that is why now Pashinyan is finding it difficult to come out of this situation. Therefore the PM immediately called his friends in the West instead of Moscow for their support and it was noticed that Antony Blinken immediately called Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to ask to stop the anti-terror activities.

“Obviously, this is being done in an effort to stop Azerbaijan from cleaning up the area from Armenian military personnel there. We have witnessed that a lot of pressure came from the USA and other Western countries. The situation differs from previous ones when Moscow had put pressure on this matter. Pashinyan felt that in the case of Azerbaijan's further success in the anti-terror activities, his domestic position would be seriously affected. He had already seen that people in Yerevan and other Armenian cities went out to protest against him because of his back-fired foolish strategy. In short, Pashinyan was desperate to get out of this situation, and he was seeking the support of his newly found friends in the West,” the pundit opined.

As for some US Senators who stand with Armenian separatism, he pointed out that it is more of their personal interest. He said that right now, the American interest is that they want to increase their influence in the backyard of Russia and Armenia is the place for fulfilling this interest. Therefore, they forget all these principles regarding terrorism and separatism. He concluded that instead, they put pressure on Azerbaijan, or they do want to show Pashinyan and Armenians that they are just allies with Armenia.

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Qabil Ashirov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @g_Ashirov