On August 5, 2019, when Nikol Pashinyan was shouting from Stepanakert’s Renaissance Square that “Artsakh is Armenia, and that’s it,” anyone who had dared to suggest or even imagine that, just seven years later, concern would be voiced from the floor of Armenia’s parliament about inadvertently harming Azerbaijan’s international standing—and that this concern would come from a representative of the political force led by Nikol Pashinyan—would have been considered utterly insane. No such madmen appeared in 2019. But in 2026, such a statement was indeed made from the parliamentary rostrum in Armenia.
A lawmaker representing the parliamentary majority says that one must be careful with one’s wording, lest it create the impression that we are putting Azerbaijan’s international standing at risk. Presumably, the next step will be an appeal to Azerbaijan asking it to provide a list of expressions that would be least damaging to its international standing—or, better still, expressions guaranteed to leave that standing completely untouched.
Meanwhile, Armenia’s ruling majority is playing with Armenia’s own international standing with remarkable nonchalance. For example, in a broader sense, the very birth of Armenian statehood is being portrayed as conflict-ridden. This is being done even at the level of the prime minister, who characterizes the Declaration of Independence and the political logic of the so-called Third Republic in precisely those terms.
None of this can possibly fit within the bounds of any healthy, sober logic. Yet it is a reality. It is happening, it is being said aloud—and there is concern for Azerbaijan’s international standing.
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Apparently, that is why French President Emmanuel Macron hastened to mend relations with Aliyev, lest he incur the displeasure of Armenia’s authorities. After all, France had been declaring that Azerbaijan was fomenting and supporting unrest in its overseas territories, including New Caledonia. In other words, Paris was effectively daring to discredit Azerbaijan and, by doing so, exposing itself to the risk of coming under fire from the Armenian authorities.
And now Nikol Pashinyan is discussing matters of cosmic proportions with Macron in Paris, because Azerbaijan’s international standing is, apparently, being kept safe.
HAKOB BADALYAN
