Moscow sponsors the coup against Pashinyan: let’s get rid of Washington’s “warehouse”

It was natural for Armenia to witness a serious political crisis like the one that defined it the day before yesterday. His war with Azerbaijan, which began on September 27 and ended with an agreement on November 10, 2020, was destined to have its effects on everyone. As the last round ended with a very severe defeat suffered by Yerevan, expectations were that its prime minister, Nikole Pashinyan, would pay the price with his resignation or dismissal. But Russia’s calculations, which managed to restore its influence in Armenia, were to keep it in power, at least pending the implementation of the Nagorno Karabakh Agreement. The Armenian Prime Minister’s statements about the ineffectiveness of the Russian “Iskander” missiles during the Karabakh war angered Moscow, which was preparing to sell such missiles to other countries. “The reason for the defeat was Russian weapons,” said Pashinyan. “90% of the Iskander missiles produced in Russia did not explode, and only 10% of them exploded.” These statements came in response to the former President of the Republic, Serge Sargsyan, who finally asked why these missiles were not used in the battles with Azerbaijan.

Although Russia considered what happened between the government and the leadership of the armed forces as an internal Armenian matter, the impression prevailed that Moscow was behind the attempted coup against Pashinyan, in the context of its defamation of the Russian military industry. The crisis erupted after the Chief of Staff, Onik Gasparyan, asked the prime minister to resign, which he considered an attempted coup, asking his followers to go to Republic Square to support him. And although Pashinyan made the decision to dismiss the Chief of Staff and the leaders of the armed forces, the President of the Republic, Armen Sarkissian, has so far refused to sign the dismissal decision, knowing that Gasparyan said that Armenia possesses the Iskander missiles. But Pashinyan refused to allow its use! Knowing also that Armenia had received a batch of these missiles, which has a range of 500 km, in 2016.
The decision to remove Pashinyan could have re-shuffled the cards in Yerevan and the South Caucasus in the direction of refusing to implement the Karabakh Agreement, meaning a return to zero point, which Turkey and Azerbaijan feared. Thus, Turkey was the first country to condemn the coup attempt, as its Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu from Budapest rejected any coup attempt anywhere and on any side. Thus, Ankara followed the situation closely, before having a big question about the fate of the Lachin corridor from Armenia to Karabakh, and the “Turkish corridor” between Nakhchivan and Azerbaijan. He believes that the survival of Pashinyan protects the Karabakh accord, and the arrival of the military in Yerevan signifies the rise of the Armenian military organization “Asala” and the “Kurdistan Workers Party”. In addition, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev warned Armenia not to implement the agreement, threatening that in this case, the Armenian neighbor would worsen. He said: “If Armenia had heard of us before the war, it would not have fallen into this abyss.”

The removal of Pashinyan could reorganize the cards in Yerevan and the South Caucasus in the direction of refusing to implement the Karabakh Agreement.

Although Russia sees in Pashinyan also the man on the stage for the implementation of the Karabakh Agreement, he was waiting for the culmination of this stage to overthrow him, considering that it is the creation of the West, and has never felt inclined towards him since. came to power in 2018. Pashinyan accumulated with his declarations of ineffectiveness the Iskander missiles, the Russian discontent with him. The leadership of the Armenian army is completely loyal to Russia, with 70 or just under 81 high-ranking officers, as well as 30 high-ranking police officers, signing a petition to remove the prime minister a day after he removed the prime minister. deputy chief. of the staff, Tigran Khatchatrian. The latter, who is 43 years old, had a prominent role in the battles of the 1990s and led the Shushi Front in particular, he was expected to later become chief of staff. Therefore, the decision to fire him negatively resonated with the leadership of the army. In Armenia there are also two Russian bases and ten thousand soldiers. Not only did the army leadership ask Pashinyan to resign, but the leadership of the Armenian Orthodox Church did the same, meaning it was deprived of the support of broad groups in society.
Fahim Tashtin, the “Gazette Dwar” writer, says Russia is neither ashamed nor weak, but sees that it has doubled its influence in the region. The belief that he is behind the coup attempt is not far from the truth, as the commander of the joint Russian-Armenian forces, Tigran Parvanyan, was one of the signatories to Pashinyan’s impeachment request. What he said is that what happened is an internal matter, but an attempt to peacefully overthrow Pashinyan. Tashtin adds that the sense of military weight in recent events reinforces the trend towards a new war in the Caucasus. Richard Guiragossian, director of the independent “Regional Business Center” in Yerevan, believes in an interview with a Turkish newspaper that the government cannot be overthrown, not because it is strong, but because there is no realistic alternative. He says that the existing crisis is much deeper than it appears. Parliament is in the hands of one party, the government is in the hands of one person, the opposition is unable to mobilize and lobby, and the voter is caught between two evils. Therefore, observers believe that the available solution, at this stage, is to call early parliamentary elections that will resolve the conflict and keep the authority away from undemocratic military coups. In this context, the efforts of the President of the Republic of Artsakh (Karabakh), Arik Harutunyan, to mediate between the authority and the army in Yerevan, were remarkable, since the weakening of the central authority in Yerevan does not mean more than a new withdrawal. of the Karabakh question for Armenians.
As for the United States, it continues to bet on the survival of Pashinyan, its first man, as US State Department spokesman Ned Price asked the military not to interfere in the country’s political affairs, while the European Union urged Calm down. Singer Emer, head of the political science department of the Turkish “Ofok” University, believes that the whole story comes down to the conflict between Russia and the United States, which placed Pashinyan at the heart of the Russian sphere of influence. Imer says that Pashinyan came with the support of the Armenian diaspora in the West, and he certainly made many mistakes, but this diaspora is a disruptive factor for the situation in Yerevan. As for Hazal Yalin, he writes that Pashinyan has no more than 8% of the support of the people, and that the percentage of those who want early elections is higher than the percentage of those who do not.

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