Forecast: Pashinyan may be forced to choose between his own interests  and the interests of the nation

ArmInfo. Provoking tensions with killings and shelling on the border, Baku is pursuing several goals in parallel. Former Artsakh Foreign Minister, Ambassador  Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Arman Melikyan expressed a similar  opinion to ArmInfo.

"We are talking about the desire to seize additional territories of  Armenia. And, of course, about the desire to force Yerevan to  officially recognize the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan on  favorable terms for Baku.  In other words, Baku seeks to force  Yerevan to retreat from the demand for self-determination of Artsakh.   I think it is also necessary to take into account the possibility of  consistent, rather than parallel, achievement of these tasks by  Azerbaijan. And the fact that the achievement of one item can open  the door to the process of implementing the rest of the agenda items  of Baku, "he said.

In this context, the implementation of the proposal of Armenian Prime  Minister Nikol Pashinyan on the deployment of Russian military and  CSTO observers on the border with Azerbaijan, in the diplomat's  opinion, is generally capable of preventing further clashes on the  border. However, it also raises a number of questions, since the  implementation of such actions, according to his forecasts, is quite  capable of causing the formation of political, legal and military  risks in the future.

In this light, the diplomat noted a significant difference, for  example, between the location of the Russian military on neutral  territory and the current positions of the Armenian Armed Forces. And  if the Russian border guards are deployed at the border, and not just  servicemen of the RF Armed Forces, than Melikyan concludes that this  may well become the basis for defining the border exactly along the  line on which they will be located.

"In any case, I consider it premature to analyze the implementation  of these scenarios in conditions when they are exclusively at the  level of the wishes of the Armenian authorities. And as far as I  understand, there have been no official negotiations with Moscow on  this issue yet. The Armenian Defense Ministry is still in the process  of formation, it seems possible to logically assume that the main  decision-maker, negotiator and, accordingly, responsible for their  implementation is Prime Minister Pashinyan," the diplomat emphasized.

According to Melikyan, in the absence of proper transparency in  Pashinyan's contacts with foreign partners, which makes it possible  to make the Armenian prime minister's red lines visible, absolutely  nothing should be ruled out today. At the same time, he noted that  all the recent processes are crucial not only for Armenia and the  Armenian people, but also for Pashinyan himself personally. And in  his opinion, these very processes are prerequisite and incentive for  Armenia's opponents in the formation of a clash of interests, as a  result of which Pashinyan will be forced to make a choice between his  own interests and the interests of the nation.  

"Against this background, the level of internal self-organization in  Armenia continues to remain catastrophically low. And the ruling  force has not managed to consolidate society following the results of  early elections around one axis. Meanwhile, it is this kind of  consolidation that would make it possible to ensure the realization  of our state and national interests to the maximum, which would give  society confidence in the future. "The absence of all this indicates  that the authorities do not fully understand the seriousness of the  situation, they are not able to respond to the challenges facing  Armenia," the diplomat concluded.