The Duran Podcast - Pashinyan's plan for Armenia backfires

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

Pashinyan's plan for Armenia backfires

All right, Alexander, let's revisit what is going on with Armenia and Azerbaijan. And Paschignan's attempts to move Armenia into the European Union and NATO. Actually, Pasjaniad gave a speech like a week and a half ago. Not many people reported on it where he said that Armenia is now ready to enter the European Union. Union and NATO. He actually said that during a speech that he gave like a week and a half ago, with some event, some EU ministerial event or something was taking place. And Azerbaijan, Pasjadad said that our media, since the conflict has in Nagorno-Karabakhad has concluded with Azerbaijan, he said now our media is ready to enter the European Union and NATO. What a comment,

what a statement from Bashi-Yan. I mean, it just leaves you shaking your head anyway. they need Russia. Russia is the big player in the region, and Russia continues to work with Armenia, even though Paschignan is doing everything he can to take Armenia into the European Union and into NATO. What is the latest? Well, indeed, and to add to that, he said, you know, to the Europeans, you know, your values or our values. And of course, when they talk about values, you need to be particularly careful because, of course, we know what values means. and he's also, the Armenian government is also, and parliament, which of course is dominated by Paschengen's party. He's now ratified the Rome Statute, which means that if Putin were to visit

Armenia, they would have to arrest him in compliance with the ICC warrant, all these deeply unfriendly moves, as the Russians say. And of course, what we've had over the last couple of weeks, predictably are all sorts of murmurs from Azerbaijan that the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan needs to be clarified and also murmurs about the importance for Azerbaijan of having a secure route to Nahitjavan and of course they're dropping obvious hints

that they think that the situation should be resolved with a direct land bridge from Azerbaijan all the way to Nakhitschava. Now, Armenia still is a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. There is still an Russian military base in Armenia. There are Russian troops in Armenia. If there were at the present time

a military attack by Azerbaijan on Armenia in order to sort out the problems of the border and establish, that land bridge to Nahid Chavan, then Russia is treaty bound at the moment to come to Armenia's protection. If of course Armenia quits the collective security treaty organisation, then that is no longer the case. All of these moves, all of these hints have been made by the Azerbaijanians, I think partly to remind the Armenians of all of this.

I'm sure the Russians have let's somebody like this I'm sure they're not sorry that the Aliyev government has been talking in this way but as the Russians always do they look the other way

they pretend to look the other way even as Paschignan is making all of these statements they're saying look if Armenia does want to quit the collective security treaty organisation and the Eurasian Economic Union well that's up to them but in the meantime we are going to continue to work with the

Armenians and the Azerbaijans to sort out a peace treaty between these two countries and Lavrov has been making comments about this and the result is that whatever Paschignan says one gets the sense again based on what Lavrov has been saying that the Armenians have found that they have no ultimate choice but to continue to work with the Russians towards securing that peace treaty with Azerbaijan because ultimately they have no choice. Russia remains the big player in the Southern Caucasus

and it remains the only country that is in a position to guarantee Armenia's security. The Armenians can talk about buying weapons, from France, they can talk about all kinds of other things, but if trouble comes, it's to the Russians they have to call. And there's a rather bitter editorial in the Financial Times, which has just come out, which very grudgingly and bitterly admits this, that the Western powers have no real means to project power into the Southern Caucasus and to come to Armenia's rescue if Armenia finds itself in trouble.

Right. If the Russians don't take an active role in Armenia and help to broker stability and peace, there's no doubt that Azerbaijan is going to create that land corridor. This is without question. Yes. So Armenia needs Russia. This is real politics. This is a reality.

Yes. Smashes into Paschignan. Yes. Yes. My own personal view, actually, is that the events of the last few weeks have been in the long-term disastrous for him. Because what he has done is that he had, he, he's, I think the original plan was give Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan and then, you know, dump that and move on and enter NATO and the EU. I think this is what he thought he could do. I mean, bear in mind, as I understand it, Paschenean's background is as a human rights lawyer,

which already should ring alarm bells, and as a journalist, he's not perhaps the sort of person who is particularly versed in real politics and those kind of things. But anyway, that was his idea. And then what happened was that rather than wait for Armenia to give Nagorno-Kha, to Azerbaijan as part of some bigger deal that would have allowed Armenia to join NATO and the EU. What happened was that Azerbaijan decided, well, we might just as well march in to Nagorno-Karabakh, Karabakh, and take it over ourselves. There's no need for us to agree to any kind of deal for that to happen with Armenia,

because they've already recognised it as part of our territory, and we can just march in and take it. And I think that pulled the rug ultimately under Paschunian, because he wasn't able to do this complicated deal that he and the Europeans probably thought he would be able to do with the Azerbaijanians. He found that the Azerbaijans basically took the initiative and decided things for themselves.

So the result is he's lost now gone, Karabakh. He's not gained anything in return. He's had 100,000 people leave Nagorno-Karabakh and come to Armenia. Armenia has been reduced and it still finds that it remains dependent on the Russians. I think that even allowing for how deeply embedded he is in the governmental system in Armenia, I generally think that we're probably going to see the beginning of the end of his tenure as prime minister of Armenia, not because the Russians will engineer his removal, but because people in Armenia themselves are going to gradually come to understand what a disastrous figure he has proved to be. Historically disastrous figure for Armenia. And, you know, he constructed this complicated plan to,

to get our media into the EU and NATO. And he didn't think about the rest of the world. He didn't once consider that perhaps events happening outside of Armenia, like what's going on in Ukraine, or events that he could not predict at the time, like what's happening right now in the Middle East, could draw the West's attention away from Armenia and could distract the United States and the European Union from, in question. incorporating Armenia into the EU and NATO. He didn't think about that at all.

He just thought this plan is going to go exactly as I envision it. Nagorno Karabakh, I remove this problem. Now I'm free to enter the European Union and NATO. I don't have any territorial disputes anywhere. And we can ditch Russia. He really did not think of this in a big picture terms. Very narrow, very small-minded of him. very stupid

to be quite honest very stupid but but this is the mistake all these people always make I mean you know Saakashvili made the same mistake in Georgia Asandu is making the same mistake

in Moldova the people in Kiev Zelensky and Cohen making the same mistake in Ukraine they all make this same mistake they always think that ultimately you know

if you can just join the Euro-Atlantic system, all your problems are going to be resolved, and the rest of the world really isn't that important, and we don't really think about it, and worry about it very much. Now, what is particularly exasperating about this whole business is that there is absolutely no reason at all why Armenia could not have had excellent relations

with France, for example, and Germany and all the other European countries, and indeed even the United States, without going all the way into joining NATO and the EU. I mean, it's not as if the Russians have at any point in time said to the Armenians, you can't have good relations with, say, France. So, you know, they didn't need to make this choice. But they always think of this in binary terms.

The NGOs that are there always tell them to. my brother who's been to Armenia many times tells me that the embassy, the US embassy in Yerevan is simply colossal and it's huge embassy and you know you can imagine exactly huge embassy you can imagine what they're all telling people like Paschunian and all around him so I mean

so they listen to this bad advice and close their ears and eyes to everything else and they end up in disaster. But that's, I'm afraid, as is the pattern that we have seen recur time and time and time again. I think Armenia, which is a pretty sophisticated place, and there's a huge Armenian diaspora in Russia as well, by the way, which clearly is now started to assert itself and have its say.

I think eventually that will cause a change. in policy in Armenia, but already a huge amount of damage has been done. Yeah, the embassy is massive, by the way. You drive by, it's a massive structure, complex structure. It's like campus. I mean, you know, what can you say? But yeah, you know, I was going to say real quick when you said that Russia has never once told Armenia don't have excellent relations with France and Germany and the United

States. You mentioned the NGOs, and I was going to say, yeah, maybe Russia hasn't told Armenia not to have excellent relations with the West, but the NGOs, the think tanks, the EU, NATO, the United States, I'm sure they've told Armenia don't have good relations with Russia while having good relations with us. They're the ones that usually impose this binary choice on countries. It's usually never the Russians or the Chinese that oppose this choice on countries. They're the ones that say it's either us or them. And they did the same exact thing with Ukraine and with Georgia. I remember Putin told Yanukko, he said it many times to the West in many speeches in 2013, 14. He's like, Ukraine can enter the European Union. It can be part of the Russian economic

Union as well. It can act as a bridge. And it was the European Union that told the government at the time in Ukraine, no, no, no, you either come with us or you go with them. They're the ones that imposed a binary choice in Ukraine. Exactly. That is entirely true. That is exactly correct. I mean, I can remember that. I mean, I can remember all of those events. Exactly. I can remember at the time when there was the EU Association Agreement discussions and it was pointed out in the form that it had been negotiated, it made it impossible to maintain a free trade zone with the Russians, which was beneficial to Ukraine. And Putin and Yanukovych asked for discussions with the EU to try to modify it and, you know, to tweak this thing so that

it could actually, you know, it wouldn't end up becoming the kind of binary choice that it was. And the EU came back and said, we're not changing a single punctuation mark. That's what they said. And, well, that led us exactly in Ukraine, directly to where we are. And we see in Ukraine, you know, with a war there. And of course, we're seeing in Armenia the same pattern repeating itself.

It's always them or us. And unfortunately, there are always people in these countries, people connected with NGOs and all of that, who listen to that kind of advice. I, by the way, was given a long discussion, right, somebody from Armenia about, you know, the effect these NGOs have on the economies of these countries, because you see what happens is the people who go and work for these NGOs get paid an awful lot more than local people are who carry out businesses and things of that kind. So that creates a whole new economic structure within these countries.

Then, of course, the media gets bought up because, again, the money is there to buy up the media. And the whole debate, the whole understanding of politics, that way begins to become affected and distorted in all sorts of ways that blinds people to the realities. All right. We'll end to there at the dera.orgas.com. Rumble Odyssey, X-Shoot, Telegram, Rock Finn,

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