The International Crisis Group (ICG), a Brussels-based think tank, has published a paper related to the ‘Velvet Revolution’ in Armenia and its possible implications on the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process. The paper, authored by Azerbaijani expert Zaur Shiriyev, explains how Nikol Pashinyan’s election as prime minister of Armenia was/is viewed in Baku.
Nikol Pashinyan was elected prime minister of Armenia on 8 May, with the backing of the Republican Party that had ruled under Sargysan.
Overall, Baku recognises that, in the short term, the new premier is unlikely to adopt a radically different position on Nagorno-Karabakh from that of his predecessor. That said, opinion in Baku is marked both by potential misperceptions about the new Armenian premier and a number of fears.
The first misperception is that Pashinyan is a dove on Nagorno-Karabakh. Some Azerbaijani analysts cite as evidence his links to the former Armenian president, Ter-Petrosyan, who was forced to resign in 1998 by elite opposition to his perceived openness to compromise on the conflict. But in reality, little suggests Pashinyan is a dove, and though he backed Ter-Petrosyan against Sargysan in 2008, the two have never shared policy ideas on Nagorno-Karabakh.
Second, many in Baku believe that Pashinyan’s rise to power could signal a shift in Armenian relations with Russia. This partly relates to the new premier’s 2017 statement that Armenia should leave the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), Russia’s counterpart to the trade agreementssponsored by the European Union. Yet this pronouncement should not be taken at face value: at the time, Russia had just sent a shipment of arms to Azerbaijan, and Pashinyan was speaking in anger. He did not support the later decision of his Yelk parliamentary faction to incorporate an anti-EEU stance into its platform. Indeed, since becoming prime minister, Pashinyan has taken pains to ensure he is not seen as anti-Russian. During a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on 14 May, he gave a speech providing assurance that “nobody has ever questioned the strategic importance of Armenian-Russian relations, or ever will”.
The first misperception is that Pashinyan is a dove on Nagorno-Karabakh.
Many Azerbaijani experts nonetheless persist in misinterpreting the 2017 statement as a “policy of blackmail” aimed at extracting more from Moscow. They believe that when that gambit fails, Pashinyan will pivot toward the West, leading to a deterioration in Armenia-Russia relations that will benefit Azerbaijan. As the former foreign affairs minister, Tofig Zulfugarov, put it, “Azerbaijan should be ready for negotiations and war simultaneously, and wait for Armenians to make new mistakes”.
A pro-government analyst was blunter, telling Crisis Group, “there is an expectation that if Nikol Pashinyan makes one wrong move, Moscow will punish Armenia, and increase support for Azerbaijan. This support also would mean giving the green light to Azerbaijan to take back territories via military intervention”. In reality, however, a major shift in Armenia-Russia relations for now appears unlikely.
Baku also has a number of concerns related to the change in leadership. The first relates to the fact that Pashinyan heads a minority government vulnerable to challenge. He appears likely to call snap parliamentary elections – he promised to do so before he was named prime minister and a fresh poll would give him the chance of strengthening his position in parliament. At least until that vote, the Nagorno-Karabakh issue will likely remain a pressure point deployed by the opposition (which holds the majority in parliament) against Pashinyan – any sign that the new premier is insufficiently tough could be used to undermine him.
Once he does call for a vote, Nagorno-Karabakh could easily become the main campaign issue. In such contests, said Farhad Mammadov, director of the Azerbaijani president’s Centre for Strategic Studies, “we should expect loud populist, maximalist promises from political parties and leaders regarding the settlement of the conflict”. Pashinyan himself has promised to increase the military budget and made hard-line pronouncements on Nagorno-Karabakh that could be escalatory.
The second concern, in Baku’s eyes, relates to the negotiating format for talks on Nagorno-Karabakh. For now, that format names Armenia and Azerbaijan as the two parties to the talks, and designates the two countries’ leaders as the main interlocutors.
Until recently, that meant the presidents and the foreign ministers. But now that Armenia has moved from a presidential to a parliamentary system of government, the prime minister (briefly, Sargsyan, and now Pashinyan) is Yerevan’s main representative. More to the point, parliament has veto power over even a basic formula for peace. The prime minister will have to put any decision up for a vote. A premier reluctant to make peace could stand by as deputies voted no on a prospective agreement. Even one ready to risk his political career for peace would need to win parliamentary backing.
For Baku, more troubling still for the negotiating format is the new Armenian leadership’s stance, made official after Pashinyan became prime minister, that the de facto Nagorno-Karabakh authorities be represented in talks over the enclave. Pashinyan had made this demand in April 2016, when he was an MP. At that time, officials in Baku interpreted him as playing domestic politics in reaction to the Sargsyan government’s losses in the war; since the ex-leader was of Karabakhi origin, and presented himself as a defender of de facto Nagorno-Karabakh, he was vulnerable to attack on that point. But they take the reiterated demand much more seriously.
For Baku, the participation of Karabakhi Armenians in talks about the territory’s status is acceptable only if Karabakhi Azerbaijanis displaced from their homes by war are also present on an equal footing. That demand, in turn, Yerevan rejects. The format has implications for status: Yerevan argues that Karabakhi Armenians need to be present as representatives of a nation that claims self-determination outside of Azerbaijan; Baku argues that, at a minimum, both ethnic communities need to be present to discuss self-determination within Azerbaijan. If and when talks resume, they could bog down in this dispute.
As for Pashinyan’s statement regarding the Karabakhi Armenians, senior Azerbaijani officials interviewed by Crisis Group said, “this will be perceived as a reason for war. The de facto Nagorno-Karabakh is an interested party and so should not be at the table in the negotiations, like the Azerbaijanis of Nagorno-Karabakh. This was agreed upon back in March 1992 at the OSCE (Organization of Security and Co-operation in Europe) Ministerial Council meeting in Helsinki, where the Minsk Group was established”. If the new Armenian premier pushes hard on this point, Baku will dismiss him as uninterested in negotiation. It will then likely wait for the outcome of Armenia’s snap elections, if they take place, before taking any action. But one of the biggest reasons for past escalations in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has been the parties’ lack of faith in negotiations to deliver concrete results. If there is a sense that talks are stalled, non-diplomatic options, including the tactical use of force, may become more tempting.
Baku’s third concern is the possible reopening of the airport in Nagorno-Karabakh. The airport has been ready for business since May 2011, but it remains non-operational due to warnings from Baku. The senior Azerbaijani officials said, “the reopening of this airport would constitute a casus belli”. In reality, however, Pashinyan has as yet made no statement on this topic.
Most dangerous would be de jure recognition of the de facto Nagorno-Karabakh authorities by Armenia, which is unlikely, but if it happens would be viewed as extremely provocative in Baku and could even spark some form of escalation. During the April 2016 escalation, Armenian MPs introduced a bill to that effect, but the majority shelved it.
Any escalation on the ground, even if small or inadvertent, could result in numerous casualties, given the high combat readiness on both sides of the heavily militarised line of contact and the risk that outside players would be dragged in.
Read the full report here.
