Author: Antranik Varosian

Armenia is close to losing its statehood in the fight against Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, it is possible to preserve the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh as part of the Union State of the Russian Federation and Belarus.

On March 24, the Constitutional Court of Armenia recognised the country’s obligations under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) as consistent with the country’s Constitution.

The Russian Foreign Ministry warned Yerevan that Moscow found its plans to accede to the Rome Statute of the ICC against the backdrop of the recent illegal and legally void ICC “warrants” in relation to the Russian leadership to be absolutely unacceptable.

Moscow warned the Armenian side that Yerevan’s steps in this direction could lead to “extremely negative” consequences for Armenia’s relations with Russia.

Indeed, Moscow’s reaction deems justifiable as Yerevan has not ratified the statute for 19 years and suddenly decided to do it now.

Armenian officials said that the ICC would help to uncover “crimes committed by Azerbaijan.” However, most of them had taken place outside Armenia — in Hadrut and Shushi, which (in the perception of Yerevan) are already the territory of Azerbaijan. This excludes the application of the Rome Statute there.

As a matter of fact, there are different reasons that explain Armenia’s behaviour.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan believes that the November 2020 trilateral agreement (with the mediation of Russia) do not work. In particular, he claims that the Russian Federation does not prevent the blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh through the Lachin corridor, although this is part of Russia’s responsibility.

Armenia suggests leaving this format to conduct direct negotiations with Azerbaijan either through Georgia or a European platform.

However, those platforms set one condition — Armenia will have to break ties with the Russian Federation. This explains inadequate statements from Armenia’s National Assembly deputy Gagik Melkonyan, who said that Putin would be arrested in Armenia due to the recognition of the Rome Statute.

The West is using its leverage. The EU said it was not considering sanctions against Azerbaijan and suggested focusing on dialogue between the parties instead.

In fact, there are no sanctions coming, and the European Union has no intention to aggravate relations with Baku, because it gets Azerbaijani oil and gas as a replacement for the Russian fuel. Therefore, no one is going to bite the feeding hand of Azerbaijan.

In Azerbaijan, they believe that there is no such thing as the blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh. Instead, Azerbaijan tries to prevent arms supplies to Karabakh. President Ilham Aliyev warned that one should not negotiate with Azerbaijan from the position of force.

If Aliyev had been bolder, Yerevan would have lost any prospect of returning to Nagorno-Karabakh. The Armenian lobby is strong in the West, but it will not fight for the Armenians directly. Moreover, Armenia does not want to recognize the independence of the region. There is only meanness instead of courage, and it will pay off handsomely.

Armenia has already decided how it is going to continue to fight with Azerbaijan — it has taken Iran as an ally. Iran will not allow the formation of the Zangezur corridor along the border with Armenia to Nakhichevan. It will enter the war on the side of Armenia too.

It looks doubtful that Tehran will do that as it has a much bigger conflict brewing with Israel.

Instead of negotiating with Azerbaijan and Russia on Karabakh and preparing to win back morally and militarily, Armenia assumed that the West would come for help here and now.

As experience shows, such hopes do not lead to anything positive. The West may only care less about the people of Karabakh, and Armenia’s ambitions do not matter here either. The goal of the West is to defeat Russia. The Armenians are doomed to slaughter at this point — it goes about common residents of Karabakh and Armenia rather than the diaspora, including in Russia.

It appears that Yerevan intends to drain the cup of the death of its nation to the dregs. Armenia will pull out from the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), which is already happening de facto. Afterwards, Armenia will exit the Eurasian Economic Union and then leave the friendship agreement with the Russian Federation (Russian peacemakers will be withdrawn from Karabakh and the Gyumri base).

The economy of Armenia will suffer in the first place, as it is largely dependent on cheap Russian fuel and Russian tourists. Prices for gas, oil, gasoline, diesel, etc will soar, and the inflation rate will surge to 20-30 percent.

Western “peacekeepers” will be deployed as well. As long as Europe needs Azerbaijan, the bargaining will continue and Yerevan will be eventually forced to accept the position of Baku to decide the fate of the people of Karabakh.

If Armenia were part of the Union State of Russia and Belarus, no Azerbaijani “environmentalists” would dare to block the Lachin corridor. The people of Karabakh would be granted autonomy as part of the Union State.

https://english.pravda.ru/world/156202-armenia_azerbaijan/