PASHINIAN'S TURKISH MARCH

The victory of the incumbent Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the second round of presidential elections still generates key political headlines and trends on a variety of topics and vectors. This includes sensitive areas as well, such as the dialogue between Armenia and Türkiye and the possible normalisation of relations between Ankara and Yerevan.

Pre-election hopes and post-election realities, or the intricacies of protocol

In fact, Armenia hoped for Kemal Kilicdaroglu's victory during the recent presidential elections in Türkiye. The reasons were the same for which Baku was expecting Erdogan to win. Some took seriously the information about the Armenian ethnicity of Kilicdaroglu's mother. Others carefully monitored how often (or rather, how rarely) the opposition party's candidate touched on issues related to Azerbaijan. Others simply could not forgive Erdogan's position during the 44-day war, hoping for anyone but the current president. Either way, Armenia was seriously betting on Kilicdaroglu's victory.

However, today all of these arguments may be interesting as a bunch of historical facts only. Erdogan won the election, and now Pashinian and his team have to build bridges and relations with the Türkiye they have, rather than the Türkiye they would like to have.

And Pashinian has been indeed very active these days. News agencies reported that right after the vote count, the Armenian prime minister congratulated the newly elected Turkish president on his Twitter account: "Looking forward to continuing working together towards full normalisation of relations between our countries." Moreover, despite the absence of diplomatic relations, he travelled to Ankara to take part at Presient Erdogan's inauguration ceremony. Many experts interpreted the visit more than just a sensation - a major political advance on the Armenian-Turkish track.

It was expected that Pashinian's visit to President Erdogan's inauguration ceremony will cause mixed reactions in Armenia. Thus, a Turkic expert from Yerevan, Ruben Melkonian, said to Sputnik that Armenia represented by Pashinian was in a "humiliating position". He believes that "a protocol is a platform for sending various messages. By putting Prime Minister Pashinian behind Aliyev, Türkiye actually showed how it treated Armenia. It was the presence of a loser country at a winner's party". We can explain such statements by internal political friction in Yerevan. But in fact Pashinian finds himself in a situation where he has no choice. In terms of relations with Türkiye,  he must maintain at least the semblance of some progress through nice gestures and promising hints. But to what extent Pashinian and his team are ready for a real normalisation of relations with Türkiye?

They remember everything in Türkiye

Pashinian is commonly seen as a supporter of the party of peace, a dove and an advocate of normalisation of relations with Azerbaijan and Türkiye. In Armenia, however, revanchists call him with names where 'traitor' is the most mild. Yet, it is at least unserious to consider Pashinyan a representative of the party of peace. After all, it is him who is responsible for the breakdown of negotiations and the start of the Second Garabagh War than anyone else. It was Pashinian who exacerbated hostile sentiments towards Türkiye to a higher and more dangerous level. This is what the Armenian historian, politician and diplomat Jirayr Libaridian said in his famous BBC interview: "...the Armenian president and prime minister made statements this summer (2020) on the anniversary of the Sèvres peace treaty, which can be regarded as presenting territorial claims against Türkiye."

Perhaps some expected that after the defeat in the 44-day war, Armenia would come to its senses and change its policy. But on April 24, 2023, a monument to terrorists from the notorious Nemesis gang was unveiled in Yerevan. Terrorists that massacred the government officials of the Ottoman Empire and the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in the 1920s. In addition to their names engraved on the monument, it also includes a few blank spots, which can be interpreted as a message, hinting at the continuation of the struggle, i.e., the acts of terror.

Azerbaijan and Türkiye strongly condemn Yerevan's glorification of terror. Turkish authorities closed its airspace to Armenia, even to Air Force One. The then Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu warned: "Armenia erected a monument to Nemesis to glorify terrorist organisations, terrorists who killed our diplomats, our Azerbaijani brothers and our citizens in the 1920s. It is simply impossible for me, as the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who has the most number of martyrs, to accept this." He added that the claims of Armenian authorities that "it was the Office of the Major of Yerevan that erected the monument, we have no authority to influence their actions" were insincere and incorrect; they demonstrate Yerevan's lack of good intentions. "In response to these 'good' intentions, I am not going to stand idly by, of course. We have closed the Turkish airspace to aircraft flying to many different destinations from Armenia," Mevlutoglu said. Then he advised: "No offence, but if they continue like this, if they (Armenians, R+) do not eliminate this, we will take additional measures". Today, the Turkish Foreign Ministry is headed by Hakan Fidan. However, Ankara's stance is unlikely to change. Yet, Ankara received Pashinian, albeit putting him in the second row. And it means a lot anyway. Especially since the monument is still where it stands.

First step, long road and gesture diplomacy

Perhaps one would say things like "the longest haul starts with the first step", "public opinion must be taken into account", "reconciliation process will be long and arduous" and so on. But the fact is Armenia has mainly pursued a so-called gesture diplomacy towards Türkiye, such as dispatching a group of rescuers to Türkiye after the earthquake, a project to restore the bridge on the border with Türkiye or Pashinian's trip to the inauguration ceremony. However, we have yet to see the start of the process of reconciliation on the really difficult and fundamental issues in Armenia. These include the Armenian position on the 1915 events, the cult of terror and, most importantly, Türkiye's borders in line with the Moscow and Kars treaties. Although territorial claims to Türkiye are not among the priorities in Armenia, as they were before, the issue is mentioned even in the preamble to the constitution of Armenia.

The unveiling of the Nemesis monument demonstrates that Armenia cannot remain committed to the reconciliation process even at the level of gestures. However, it is also too risky for Armenia to continue its former policy. Acts of terror and a disputed borderline are an a priori risk of full-scale war. Until recently, Armenia could be confident that Russia would have their backs if anything happened. But now Yerevan has no such confidence. Russia did not fight instead of Armenia against Azerbaijan during the 44-day war and did not try to "seriously punish" Baku during the recent border skirmishes. Today, amid the Ukrainian war, there is even less chance for Russia to intervene, siding with Yerevan against Ankara. This is what makes Pashinian resort to such gestures and demonstrate his alleged peaceful intentions.

However, gestures alone are no longer enough. Especially amid the monument to terrorists.