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.