By Dr. Robert O. Krikorian, Maryland, USA. 16 May 2026
Keghart.org. The notion that outside powers view Armenia as anything other than a pawn is pure fiction. Both historically and today, Armenia’s main role is as an obstacle to achieving other states’ goals. Ignoring these realities, the government of Armenia has chosen a path of capitulation and willful self delusion.
And hope, or more accurately in the Armenian case, hopelessness is not a strategy. Unfortunately, however, wishful thinking conditioned by a sense of inevitable failure seems to be the preferred strategy of the current government of Armenia.
This defeatist wishful thinking can be seen at almost every level of Armenian state policy. The government of Armenia hopes that unending concessions to Azerbaijan will bring peace.
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They will not.
Artsakh has been ethnically cleansed and even as you read these lines, its cultural heritage is being subjected to complete destruction.
Sovereign, internationally recognized Armenian territory is still occupied by the Bashibouzouks of Baku.
The Aliev dictatorship has ramped up its rhetoric regarding the very existence of Armenia by claiming that in fact, Armenia is nothing more than occupied Western Azerbaijan.
The Aliev regime continues to illegally hold Armenian hostages in the most vile and uncivilized conditions, refusing to even consider releasing them.
Thus far, all of Armenia’s concessions have produced absolutely nothing in return, not even rhetorically.
The government of Armenia hopes that by ignoring the Armenian Genocide and other historical and cultural realities Turkey will act like a responsible state.
It has not and will not.
Armenia has been and still is the bone in the throat of Pan-Turkism, the roadblock separating Turkey from its self-proclaimed Turkic brothers in Azerbaijan and Central Asia. The Armenian Genocide of 1915 did not happen in a vacuum, but was inseparably connected to the dominant Pan-Turkic ideology of uniting all Turkic peoples, the path to which ran through the Armenian Highlands. Armenian Genocide architect and Turkish national hero Enver Pasha died fighting in Central Asia trying to realize this dream.
The Republic of Turkey’s open, proud and direct participation in the destruction of Artsakh and its unrelenting support for Azerbaijan (one nation, two states) should be a clear and obvious sign that Ankara has no intention of moderating its behavior toward Armenia.
The ongoing multi-billion dollar Armenian Genocide denial industry in Turkey is further evidence of ill intentions. At 111 years and counting, who is naive enough to believe that Turkey is ready to confront its past and deal with Armenia as a sovereign and equal state? They can’t even accept Kurds as equal citizens of Turkey.
And what of Turkey’s aggression against Syrian Kurds? Against Iraqi Kurds?
And who, after all, speaks of a Turkish withdrawal from northern Cyprus? The Ankara regime has occupied Cypriot territory since 1974 and yet the international community has remained largely silent.
It is absurd for the government of Armenia to think that it is safe from Turkish aggression no matter how much it downplays the Armenian Genocide and how many national symbols it removes and however much it attempts to destroy the Armenian people’s historical memory!
Dr. Robert O. Krikorian retired from the Department of State after more than two decades as an intelligence analyst and senior adviser. He began his State Department career as a diplomatic historian, focusing on the practical and policy-relevant applications of historical knowledge. He earned a Bachelor’s Degree from Clark University, a Master’s Degree from The George Washington University and received his PhD in History and Eurasian Studies from Harvard University, where he also taught courses on Russian and Middle Eastern History. In addition, he has taught at the Elliott School of International Affairs at The George Washington University and has lectured to hundreds of diplomats at the State Department Foreign Service Institute as part of their training for postings in the South Caucasus and elsewhere. Dr. Krikorian has written and presented extensively on the modern history and politics of Armenia and Eurasia.