ArmInfo. Given that Armenia is still in a rather vulnerable situation, and managing this situation requires a great degree of flexibility and foresight, some statements by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan cannot but cause surprise. A similar opinion was expressed to ArmInfo by the chairman of the Public Council of Armenia, the head of the Armenian Institute of International Affairs and Security Stepan Safaryan.
"This, in particular, is about the deployment of Russian military on the border of Armenia with Azerbaijan. The authorities must realize the impossibility of ensuring and strengthening security at the expense of sovereignty. Our people did not give a mandate to trust any political force to provide functions to protect our borders to another state. I am convinced that Moscow can and should calm the situation at the borders exclusively through negotiations, "he said.
According to the analyst, the absence of a reaction from Russia and the CSTO, the OSCE's unaddressed calls for the continuing open inclinations of Baku on the territory of Armenia, all this impunity directly legitimizes these actions of Azerbaijan with all the ensuing consequences. In particular, with the prospect of maintaining the current voltage level at the border.
Analyzing this proposal of Pashinyan, Safaryan regarded it as a statement of the lack of prospects in the direction of reducing the current tension. And the message to Moscow is that it is necessary to send CSTO observers to the borders if the Russian Federation is really interested in reducing this tension. This automatically eliminates the need for Yerevan's regular appeals to the CSTO for help. According to Safaryan's assessments, due to the lack of interest of the Russian Federation in the deployment of observers or border guards on the conditional section of the Sotk-Khoznavar border in the past, it seems that when proposing to place border guards along the entire length of the border with Azerbaijan, Yerevan does not really expect a positive response from Moscow ...
"In any case, the willingness to entrust control over the entire border with Azerbaijan to Russia is a bad message for the West. On the one hand, the willingness of Yerevan to transfer control over the border to Moscow, of course, can be regarded by the West as Armenia's appeal for help and protection. And the absence of this assistance leaves Armenia no other alternative but to seek this protection in Russia. But on the other hand, all this can be perceived as another step by Armenia in transferring another bit of its sovereignty to Russia "the analyst summed up.