HEEDLESS FOREIGN OFFICE

Apparently, Armenia is going through a process of political reset. On the one hand, the parliamentary elections are over. Nikol Pashinyan has secured his post for the coming next years. He even made his first foreign visit to Moscow, as expected. However, the Armenian authorities are yet to start the process of forming a new parliament and government. The Constitutional Court is considering the claim of the opposition parties, which lost the recent election, primarily the Hayastan bloc led by Robert Kocharian, which should become the leading opposition force in the new Armenian parliament, if the MPs from from this bloc take mandates and thereby agree with the outcome of the elections.

Pashinyan retained his post, but we can expect inevitable changes in his team. And above all in the most sensitive and delicate areas, including the army and diplomacy. Not only because the victorious prime minister promises his fellow citizens "vendetta" and "staff pogroms."

Staff pogroms or staff crisis?

Nikol Pashinyan cannot change anything or anyone, even theoretically. Indeed, almost all the leadership of the Foreign Ministry resigned earlier in Armenia, including the minister Ara Ayvazyan and his three deputies - Avet Adonts, Artak Hapitonyan, and Armen Gevondyan and the spokeswoman of the ministry Anna Naghdalyan. Nikol Pashinyan is in no hurry to appoint an acting minister either, which is also very symptomatic. Especially considering the hidden reasons behind the resignation of Ayvazyan and his deputies.

Officially, Ayvazyan strongly disagreed with Nikol Pashinyan's defeatist policy. According to another version, Armenian diplomacy has simply fallen into the trap of overestimated expectations.

Thus, Serzh Sargsyan, the third president of Armenia and an accomplice of the Khojaly genocide, made an interesting statement: "… conflict experts know that most of the secession conflicts end with the legitimisation of the newly independent state not because the former metropolis gives its consent, but because a consensus on this issue is reached at the level of the international community." In other words, he explicitly voiced his plans: let the international community reach a consensus and hand over the Azerbaijani Garabagh to Armenia, put a pressure on Baku - and everything will be fine. Meanwhile, Zhirayr Libaridian, a former adviser to the first president of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosyan, in his sensational interview with the BBC warned his compatriots: “People confuse what they want with what they should be given. Nobody has to give them anything."

Diplomats have been and are at the forefront of these very high expectations. However, Armenia is expected to face yet another defeat – this time a diplomatic one. They do not like talking about this loud in Armenia, but no delays due to the recent election can make Armenia postpone the fulfilment of its obligations under the trilateral agreement.

There is one more aspect to the new appointments in Armenia. Azerbaijani MP and political scientist Rasim Musabeyov noted on his Facebook page: “I believe that Pashinyan was invited to Moscow to get informed whom the Kremlin would like to see in Yerevan as the heads of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Defense, State Security Service and other important posts. Perhaps someone from the Armenian prime minister’s circle leaked information about the alleged appointments, which are completely unacceptable for the Kremlin. Therefore, they decided to be proactive there." Indeed, while some believe that Ruben Rubinyan, head of the parliamentary commission on foreign policy and Nikol Pashinyan's longtime associate, becomes the new foreign minister, other sources claim that Moscow wants to see on this post the acting Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan. He is the co-chair of the working group in the Trilateral Commission of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan on unblocking regional communications.

Another significant leak can be the rumours about the imminent resignation of Armen Grigoryan from the post of Secretary of the Security Council of Armenia. He has previously worked closely with the Soros Foundation, which makes it very difficult for the Secretary of the Armenian Security Council to communicate with Russian colleagues, who are in no hurry to provide him with classified information. He is expected to be replaced by Vagharshak Harutyunyan, the incumbent defense minister and author of a ‘strategic’ idea to shell the residential areas of Azerbaijani cities.

Dangling coup again...

Possible reshuffle in the Armenian military is a separate and very delicate topic. Moreover, Nikol Pashinyan, who did not serve in the army, does not have very good relations with the army elite. Incidentally, there was already an attempt of a military rebellion in the post-war history of Armenia by the former head of the General Staff Onik Gasparyan. The case ended with his resignation, but still… Moreover, many experts believe that Gasparyan's revolt then failed largely because the coup was not supported by the corps commanders.

Post-election Armenia is now discussing another news. Major General Grigory Khachaturov, the son of the former CSTO Secretary General Yuri Khachaturov, was dismissed from the post of commander of the 3rd Corps of the Armenian Armed Forces. Pashinyan demanded his prosecution at the very beginning of his premiership. This next wave of army cleansing is very similar to the manifestation of Pashinyan's deep concern: Armenia continues to live in the conditions of a suspended coup. And the most dangerous thing for Pashinyan is that there is still a group of people in the army that his political opponent Robert Kocharyan can rely on.

Forgotten economy

We should not forget about one thing, when analysing the possible internal political conflicts in Armenia. First, the new Armenian authorities should solve the most difficult economic and social problems in the country. especially when it has lost a significant source of income due to the plunder of the occupied Azerbaijani lands. The loss of gold mines has already seriously hit the Armenian state budget. Last winter, experts provided some real figures: out of 7,000 hectares of perennial plantations - gardens in Garabagh - only about 2,000 hectares remain under the control of the Russian peacekeeping forces, which is no more than 30% of the previous volumes. In recent years, the total area of arable lands in the occupied Azerbaijani lands, according to the estimates of the Armenian side, was about 132,000 hectares. Now 70% of them are no longer controlled by Armenia. If earlier Armenia received agricultural products mainly from the occupied Garabagh, now the zone controlled by the peacekeepers is not even able to provide itself.

There is one more problem. Armenia also lost control over many hydroelectric power plants. As a result, while Garabagh supplied 300-330 MW of electric power to Armenia before the war, now Armenia has to export electric power to Khankendi. Problems with power generation have been growing in Armenia since 2015, when the risk of frequent blackouts was first voiced there. Of course, the development of the post-conflict settlement and the unblocking of communications will reanimate the Armenian economy, but this needs time and political will.

Therefore, the usual populism, which many Armenian leaders, including Pashinyan, so skillfully used, will no longer help.