This is exactly why Pashinyan closed the Artsakh topic

There is perhaps a misunderstanding that Nikol Pashinyan describes the Artsakh movement and everything related to it as a “leash” and a threat to independence and sovereignty, in order to restrain any “mirror” action of Azerbaijan. It seems that with the same logic, Nikol Pashinyan urges not to talk about the return of Artsakh residents or Armenians who lived in the cities of Azerbaijan, so that Azerbaijan does not talk about the so-called “Western Azerbaijan”. Pashinyan himself declares that we should be silent so that they don’t speak either.

Of course, any sane person would point out that they are still not silent. Moreover, they are not only silent, but speak more openly and boldly that Armenia is obliged to accept Azerbaijanis. And in relation to those statements pointed out by any sane person, no sane explanation comes from official Yerevan. Needless to say, there is no objection to Azerbaijan’s ambitions.

It is repeated like a mantra that our “line” is peace. It is repeated even when Azerbaijan declares that there can be no peace if there is no “return of Azerbaijanis”. Moreover, when “in response” to those official statements from Baku, not an objection is heard from Yerevan, but that we are building peace, then it actually means: The “construction work” of building peace will one day also achieve the satisfaction of the next Azerbaijani precondition for that peace, the “return” of Azerbaijanis.

Returning to the beginning, I should mention that it is perhaps misunderstood that Pashinyan closed the Artsakh issue and everything related to it in order to prevent the “mirror” reaction of Azerbaijan. Pashinyan did this knowing full well that Azerbaijan has not remained silent and will not remain silent. Pashinyan knows better than anyone that Azerbaijan’s policy is not based on “mirrorism”, but on the ambition of unconditional strategic supremacy over Armenia. After all, all that is perhaps presented to him in the most direct text, in the rooms of Armenian-Azerbaijani meetings.

Nikol Pashinyan has closed the Artsakh issue and everything related to it with one main goal, the formation of the necessary internal environment for the preservation of power, by turning concepts and historical and factual realities upside down. If he does not close that topic, then he cannot have an answer for the depopulation and loss of Artsakh, he cannot present all that as the achievement of sovereignty. If he can’t present it even like that, then eight years after his prime ministership, he won’t have any other topic to present even in a disguised way. This is why Pashinyan “closed” the Artsakh issue. It has nothing to do with blocking the “road” of Azerbaijanis to Armenia, if not to say that the connection is completely the opposite.

Hakob BADALYAN