Expert: Pashinyan wants to secure support of Western patrons, but this may lead to dead end

Armenia seeks to radically change the situation in the South Caucasus, having secured the support of a number of Western patrons for this, Irish historian and political scientist Patrick Walsh told Report, commenting on the trilateral conference of the EU, US and Armenia scheduled for April 5.

“Pashinyan sees Western protection as essential both to his own, and Armenia’s future security. He, and many Armenians, feel badly let down by the traditional protectors of Armenia - Moscow. He feels threatened by an opposition that is ready to use Yerevan’s defeats against him to unseat him from power,” he noted.

“Pashinyan is therefore gathering a range of Western protectors around him, much to the annoyance of Moscow, which, at present, has its hands full in Ukraine. Baku, on the other hand, has not wanted to depart from its traditionally balanced foreign policy between West and East. In other words, Yerevan, has wittingly or not, imported the “Great Game” of geopolitics into the region, which had been largely excluded by the Trilateral Agreement of 2020.

I can guess that Baku is less enamored by the bringing of the US French, and other Europeans into the region as political players. Not only is Azerbaijan opposed to these elements throwing their weight behind Yerevan but it also conscious of the opposition its neighbors - Türkiye, Iran and Russia - have to a Western presence. Baku obviously prefers to deal with a chastened Russia, within a Eurasian future, in which the West is kept at arm’s length than with a Western agenda which it perceives, quite understandably, as being pro-Armenian in essence.

Armenia is seeking to radically change the landscape in the South Caucasus from the situation in which it has been outmaneuvered in politics. It is putting the region in flux, with a world that is in flux. Perhaps it feels, in playing fast and loose, that it has nothing to lose. Other states have recently taken this view and they have lost far more as a result of a similar gamble,” he added.