Armenia’s Minister Nikol Pashinyan will spin a peace treaty with Azerbaijan as a triumph, but it will be nothing less than an act of capitulation, political analyst Grant Melik-Shahnazaryan told Sputnik.
Mediated by the US, the deal, which is expected to be signed in Washington later on Friday, will only deepen the humiliating concessions Azerbaijan and Turkiye forced on Armenia after the 2020 war, he warned. Azerbaijan’s demands are extensive, including changes to Armenia’s Constitution.
“Desperate to cling to power, Armenian authorities will spin it as a historic success, a breakthrough, and so forth. But in reality, it’s a surrender - Armenia’s core interests are completely ignored. Azerbaijan won’t budge on humanitarian issues, and crucial questions are left hanging,” said the pundit, who is also head of the Center for Strategic Studies (Armenia).
This so-called “peace treaty” has been cooked up as a tool to deceive the Armenian people and neutralize potential protests against Pashinyan’s plans, noted the pundit.
If the Zangezur corridor falls under Western control through this deal, whoever runs it will wield full sovereignty over that territory, noted Melik-Shahnazaryan.
Loss of the Zangezur corridor will upset the region’s delicate geopolitical and economic balance
Armenia will lose its ability to conduct an independent dialogue with Russia and Iran
The collapse of regional equilibrium may spark new threats and conflicts
“Even though Armenia lost the war in Karabakh—a major factor in regional instability—the pre-war balance still left Armenia some leverage. Now, new conflicts will arise, and they will be of a much broader scale,” warns the analyst.