“We need to reevaluate our security architecture. We must very soberly assess what factors or which states can influence Azerbaijan or Turkey, and we must assess that the levers of this influence have been significantly reduced today by Russia and the CSTO. The CSTO has no influence at all. All the CSTO countries have much better relations with Azerbaijan, both at the interstate and individual level, than Armenia, and to think that the CSTO can take any step is simply geopolitical insanity,” the second president of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan, announced at the press conference on September 28.
In order to get out of the current situation, Robert Kocharyan points out three targets: public consolidation, partial change of government, and “reevaluation of the security architecture.”
“It is obvious that Russia is doing everything possible and will do to prevent a conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, but these will be political and diplomatic steps. Today, Russia has allied relations with Azerbaijan as well, and to think that in this situation Russia can start military operations against Azerbaijan is just nonsense, nothing like that will happen. And from that point of view, quite a good situation has been created for the development of anti-Russian sentiments in Armenia.
Today, the control panel of anti-Russian sentiments is in Aliyev’s hands, when he turns on the uzi, and one more wave will go: several strongholds, two dozen victims. Of course, this is also related to the Russian-Ukrainian war and the fact that neither Russia, nor the USA, nor France have that influence on Turkey and Azerbaijan today. No one has any influence on Erdogan at all, and it must be said that he is giving a “master class” in the defense of national interests. Ignoring everything, all kinds of pressures, he does what he considers right for Turkey’s national interests.
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Now we need to understand what is the weakest point of Armenia. I think it is Syunik, which is also the area for which Azerbaijan and Turkey express their greatest desires and this is done openly. Now one question: which country besides Armenia is Syunik important for? Iran. Now, was this difficult to guess, because we want to have a state that, apart from statements, apart from exhortations, can take practical steps. Iran is the only one with a focus on pure interests. And during these two years almost nothing was done in that direction. We should have conducted at least a couple of military exercises with Iran in Syunik itself, there should have been some contractual base with Iran during this period, and this would have been the biggest deterrent for Azerbaijan, because Iran is not a state that can be stopped by waving a finger from somewhere.”
Robert Kocharyan emphasized, “We need to take some decisive steps, realizing that yes, we need to convince Russia, maybe build those relations… it’s not about leaving the CSTO, that would be another stupid thing, there were agreements within the framework of the CSTO, which were very are important for the purchase of weapons and ammunition, just to equip our security system with new components.”
Nelly GRIGORYAN
