Analyst: Yerevan needs to realize the impossibility of strengthening  security at the expense of its own sovereignty

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.