Author: Emil Lazarian

Five years after Armenia’s pro-European colour revolution, disappointment with Russia as an economic and security partner is higher than ever. Nonetheless, European Union accession remains unlikely anytime soon. 

Armenia may officially remain in the Kremlin-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), despite prime minister Nikol Pashinyan’s threat this May to withdraw from the alliance, but its leaders and public are anything but quiet about their dissatisfaction with the allies that have repeatedly let them down. 

“Armenia’s security architecture was 99.999 per cent linked to Russia, including when it came to the procurement of arms and ammunition,” Pashinyan (pictured above with French President Emmanuel Macron) said in an interview published on September 3.

“But today we see that Russia itself is in need of weapons, arms and ammunition (for the war in Ukraine) and in this situation it’s understandable that even if it wishes so, the Russian Federation cannot meet Armenia’s security needs.” 

“This example should demonstrate to us that dependence on just one partner in security matters is a strategic mistake,” he added. 

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Many Armenians feel betrayed that Moscow and the CSTO failed to provide more support during the 2020 Karabakh War with Azerbaijan and declined to come to Armenia’s defence after an Azerbaijani incursion into the territory of Armenia-proper in September 2022 left almost 300 dead. Between 2011 and 2020, Russia was the largest supplier of arms to both Armenia and Azerbaijan. 

A poll taken by the International Republican Institute (IRI) this spring found that more Armenians viewed France and Iran as important security partners than Russia. France, Iran and the United States—all home to large Armenian diasporas—were viewed as the top three “most important political partners for Armenia” by 75, 67 and 52 per cent of respondents respectively, while Russia was fourth on the list with 50 per cent.  

While the IRI’s 2019 survey found 93 per cent of Armenians considered relations with Russia to be “good”, with only six per cent of respondents viewing them as “bad,” only 50 per cent still considered relations “good” this spring and 49 per cent viewed them as “bad.” 

The EU Neighbours East project’s annual public opinion survey in 2022 found that more Armenians trust the European Union than any other international organisation—55 per cent compared to only 45 per cent for the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and 35 per cent for the CSTO. 

Armenia has been gradually deepening ties with the West since its pro-European 2018 colour revolution, and the last year has seen a rapid acceleration in the deterioration of its security ties with Russia—despite still hosting Russian troops and theoretically depending on Russian peacekeepers to enforce the ceasefire that ended the 2020 war. 

Since last September’s escalation with Azerbaijan, Armenia has taken a host of concrete actions to distance itself from the CSTO.  

At a November CSTO summit in Yerevan, Pashinyan refused to sign a declaration and a document on joint measures to provide assistance to Armenia. He justified his decision by citing the lack of a “clear political assessment” by the alliance of Azerbaijan’s offensive two months prior.  

In March, when Yerevan would normally have chosen the CSTO’s new deputy secretary general, it renounced its right to take part in the bloc’s leadership rotation.  

That same month, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Russian president Vladimir Putin for his alleged role in war crimes in Ukraine, and one week later, Armenia’s constitutional court cleared the ratification of the ICC treaty. If approved, it would compel Armenian authorities to arrest Putin, should he ever visit.  

Even though accepting ICC jurisdiction would be as much about gaining new legal tools to hold Azerbaijan accountable as thumbing it to Putin, Moscow has reacted with stern warnings of “extremely negative” consequences for Yerevan.  

Nonetheless, Pashinyan’s government formally requested the ratification of the ICC treaty by parliament on September 1. In a symbolic move, the Armenian envoy to the CSTO was recalled on September 5 and reassigned to the Netherlands, where the ICC is headquartered.  

Most shocking of all, despite refusing to host a CSTO military exercise on its territory this January, Armenia announced on September 6 that it will hold a joint exercise with American troops from September 10 to 11 called “Eagle Partner 2023”.  

The snub came a day after Armenia decided it would provide humanitarian assistance to Ukraine for the first time since Russia’s invasion in February 2022. Pashinyan’s wife, Anna Hakobian, will personally deliver the aid to Kyiv.  

Armenia scores on democracy indices are comparable to several EU candidates. In Freedom House’s Nations in Transit 2023 report, Armenia scored 35 out of 100, just below EU candidates Moldova at 37 and Ukraine at 39 and above prospective candidate Georgia at 34. Armenia was the only country assessed in the report with improvements on more than one democracy indicator.  

However, Armenia is yet to apply for EU membership and would face unique challenges in its accession process. Armenia— along with Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine—was set to sign an Association Agreement that included a free trade agreement with the EU at the 2013 Eastern Partnership summit, but then-prime minister Serzh Sargsyan abruptly backed out in favour of joining the EEU, likely under pressure from Russia. The EEU’s own terms are incompatible with a free-trade agreement with the EU. 

However, in 2017, Armenia and the EU agreed to a Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement covering issues from human rights and rule of law to mining and tourism. In 2021, Armenia finalised an agreement to join the European Common Aviation Area. 

But before it would be able to pursue full EU membership, Armenia will almost certainly have to withdraw from both the CSTO and EEU. That could potentially expose Armenia to a decades-long period of economic and security limbo as it pursues the lengthy and arduous process of joining the EU with access to neither the EEU nor EU’s single markets and is on the receiving end of Moscow’s ire without other meaningful security guarantees.  

If, as Pashinyan says, it is a “strategic mistake” to choose “just one partner in security matters”, trying to simultaneously balance the support of France, the United States, Iran, India, and—to some extent—Russia also has its risks.

https://emerging-europe.com/news/let-down-by-moscow-armenia-looks-to-the-west/ 

Armenian leaders have been criticized by prominent rabbis for using Holocaust rhetoric during interviews and issued statements regarding their conflict with Azerbaijan.

A joint letter signed by 50 senior rabbis from 20 European countries on Wednesday condemned Armenia’s use of Holocaust rhetoric against their neighboring country. The rabbis originated from France, England, Germany, Austria, Italy, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, Croatia, Spain, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Malta, Cyprus, Estonia, and Ukraine.

In the letter, the rabbis state that “expressions such as ‘ghetto’, ‘genocide’, ‘holocaust’ and others are (…) inappropriate to be part of the jargon used in any kind of political disagreement.” The letter was especially addressed to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and President Vahagn Garniki Khachaturyan.

The Armenian leaders were discussing the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, contested between them and Azerbaijan. Pashinyan compared the Nazi-created ghettos for Jews to what Azerbaijanis have been doing in the disputed region.

“Let’s go back to the Holocaust (…) Did Hitler come to power and the next morning pulled out the sword and started chasing the Jews in the streets? It lasted years, it was a process (…) Now in Nagorno-Karabakh they have created a Ghetto, in the most literal meaning of the word,” he said.

However, the letter did not merely address this one subject, as the rabbis attached to it expressed their concern over Armenian-Iranian ties, as the letter states that Iran is “a country which incessantly, openly and publicly calls for its destruction, of the only Jewish country in the world.”

The rabbis asked that “the terrible human suffering undergone by the Jewish people” be recognized and honored by the Armenian people.

They also asked that they stop “belittling the extent of the Jewish people’s suffering to further any political interest through incessantly using phrases associated with the Holocaust suffered by the Jewish people.”

Relations between Armenia and its traditional strategic partner Russia are deteriorating fast. 

In the past week, Yerevan has boldly criticized Russia’s “absolute indifference” to Azerbaijani “aggression” against Armenia and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has expressed regret over his country’s near-total dependence on Moscow for its security as a “strategic mistake.” 

And now Yerevan is sending a package of humanitarian aid to Ukraine for the first time since Russia’s invasion.  

RFE/RL’s Armenian service reported that the aid (whose precise nature and amount have not been announced) would be delivered by Anna Hakobyan, the prime minister’s wife, as she attends the Ukraine-initiated Third Summit of first ladies and gentlemen in Kyiv. 

Armenia-Russia relations have been steadily worsening since September 2022, when Azerbaijani forces attacked Armenian territory and seized several square kilometers of land in clashes that left about 400 dead on both sides. 

Armenia is a member of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization and has a bilateral defense agreement with Russia. But both Moscow and the CSTO refused to intervene on Armenia’s behalf or condemn Azerbaijan’s incursion (only a small CSTO monitoring mission was sent). A few months later Armenia refused to host a CSTO exercise and further downgraded its participation in the bloc. 

More recently, in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica on September 2, Prime Minister Pashinyan criticized the “failure” of Russian peacekeepers to protect Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, where they were have been deployed since the 2020 war with Azerbaijan. He also lamented Yerevan’s “strategic mistake” of depending on Russia almost entirely for its security and mused about cooperating more extensively with the West. 

And that followed a statement by the Foreign Ministry three days earlier criticizing Russia’s “absolute indifference” to what the ministry called Azerbaijan’s acts of aggression, including the September 2022 incursion and the June 15, 2023 incident in which Azerbaijani troops advanced towards Armenia from the border checkpoint on the Lachin road, which connects Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.

On September 5, Armenia’s Defense Ministry announced that Armenian and U.S. troops would hold a 9-day drill later this month. The exercise will focus on “stabilization operations between conflicting parties during peacekeeping missions,” the ministry said. 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded on September 7 by saying, “In this situation, it is certain that holding such exercises will not facilitate the stabilization of the situation – in any case, it will not facilitate the strengthening of an atmosphere of mutual trust in the region.” 

Two days earlier Peskov rebuffed Pashinyan’s remark in his La Repubblica interview that Russia was “leaving” the South Caucasus region. 

“Russia is an integral part of this region, so it can never go anywhere. Russia cannot leave Armenia,” he said. 

Armenia currently hosts around 10,000 Russian troops, 5,000 of which are stationed at Gyumri’s 102nd Russian military base. Others are stationed in Yerevan, including at Zvartnots International Airport. 

Russian border troops have long overseen the Armenia-Turkey and Armenia-Iran borders and have been deployed more recently to sections of the Azerbaijan border in response to tensions there.

An additional 2,000 Russian peacekeepers are stationed in the ethnic Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh region for a 5-year term set to expire in 2025. 

(Russia is also Armenia’s biggest trade partner by far, and Yerevan’s economic dependence on Moscow has only grown since the start of the Ukraine war.)

On top of everything else, Prime Minister Pashinyan this week sent the Rome statute of the International Criminal Court to parliament for ratification, despite the objections that Russia has been expressing for months. 

Armenia’s motivation is to be able to sue Azerbaijan in the ICC for its alleged abuses of Armenians. But ratifying the statute would mean, theoretically at least, that Armenia will be obliged to arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin if he visits, as the court issued an arrest warrant for Putin in March over the abduction of Ukrainian children. 

Russia expressed “dissatisfaction” over Armenia’s decision, demanding explanations for the move.

Tigran Grigoryan, the head of the Yerevan-based Regional Center for Democracy and Security think tank, says that Russia has levers to pressure Armenia into not ratifying the statute.

Grigoryan told Eurasianet that Russia may take action to “punish” Armenia as it did in April, banning dairy imports from Armenia after the latter’s Constitutional Court approved the treaty. 

The analyst added that he doesn’t expect any drastic changes in Armenia’s foreign policy in the near future, nor any dramatic Russian moves against Armenia. 

At the same time, he said, Russia is unlikely to help Armenia in case of military escalation with Azerbaijan, in particular since Moscow is now directly speaking of Karabakhi Armenians’ need to accept Baku’s rule over the disputed territory.

“Armenia has sharpened its rhetoric a bit regarding Russia because it seems that Russia has accepted Azerbaijan’s position over the issues concerning Nagorno-Karabakh, which means that Armenia does not have anything to lose,” Grigoryan said. “Russia’s proposals are currently identical to Azerbaijan’s proposals.”

By Ani Avetisyan via Eurasianet.org

https://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/International/Armenia-Russia-Relations-Are-Deteriorating-Fast.html