“Pashinyan must go,” one middle-aged demonstrator informed POLITICO, saying he most popular to not give his title as he feared reprisals. Requested who ought to take his place as prime minister, or how one other chief would keep away from battle with Azerbaijan whereas nonetheless preserving the 4 villages, the demonstrator stated: “Another person could have a greater plan.”
Pashinyan has hailed the give up of the 4 villages as a significant step towards normalizing relations with Azerbaijan — the 2 international locations have fought often for the reason that fall of the USSR in 1991 — and respecting its worldwide authorized obligations. “We’re reproducing the [legal] borders … on the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union,” he stated final week.
Earlier the identical day, officers in Yerevan and Moscow confirmed that Russian border guards — stationed alongside Armenia’s frontiers with Azerbaijan for the reason that Nineties — had been requested to go away their posts and start withdrawing.
In recent times, Armenia has frozen its membership within the Russian-led CSTO navy alliance, which refused its requires assist when Azerbaijan launched an offensive in opposition to the nation in September 2022.
Below Pashinyan’s management, the nation has as a substitute held joint drills with U.S. forces, dispatched humanitarian assist to Ukraine, and even hinted it may at some point apply for membership within the EU. Armenia’s opposition events have been crucial of the nation’s pivot to the West, claiming historic ally Russia would in any other case defend their pursuits — regardless of the Kremlin rising more and more deferential to Azerbaijan and its ally Turkey for the reason that begin of the struggle in Ukraine.
Russian peacekeepers additionally didn’t intervene when Azerbaijani troops and tanks rolled into the breakaway area of Nagorno-Karabakh final September. The mountainous area is inside Azerbaijan’s internationally-recognized borders, however had been managed by Armenia since a struggle within the Nineties. The sudden invasion, which adopted an nearly year-long blockade of the area’s provide traces, triggered the exodus of round 100,000 ethnic Armenian residents.
“The mannequin by which we’ve issues with our neighbors and we’ve to ask others to guard us — it doesn’t matter who these others are — is a really susceptible mannequin,” Pashinyan informed POLITICO final 12 months, whereas vowing to resolve Armenia’s long-standing and bitter strife with Azerbaijan.