Arestovich on Karabakh war: "Russia betrayed Armenia after 30 years of relations"
Arestovich on the war in Karabakh
Oleksiy Arestovich, former advisor to the Office of the President of Ukraine, publishes a post on Twitter about the war in Karabakh. Armenia has a chance to end the war with Russia and build normal relations with its neighbors, the Ukrainian politician believes:
“Azerbaijan has launched a “…counter-terrorist operation” in Nagorno-Karabakh. The formal reason was the death of seven Azerbaijani policemen in a mine explosion.
The depth, scope and goals of the operation are still unknown/uncalculated: perhaps it is pressure to force Armenia to sign a new agreement, where the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh finally comes under the control of Azerbaijan, and perhaps it is a direct military solution to this issue.
The second option is indicated by the statement of Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan that “Armenia will not interfere in the operation”. That is, Pashinyan deliberately leaves the Karabakh clan tied to Russia alone with the problems it creates.
The Karabakh clan, which came to power in Armenia after the first Karabakh war in the 1990s, almost created a mafia-type state out of Armenia in close client relations with Russia.
Russia, interested in participating in transportation corridors from the Caspian region to the Mediterranean basin (the main goal of Turkey and Azerbaijan), betrayed Armenia after 30 years of client-Patron relations.
▇ The logic of victory over the Karabakh clan inexorably dictates to Pashinyan not only the need to break with Russia, but also to conclude (finally!) a normal agreement with its neighbors – for a country isolated by its neighbors without normal relations with them is doomed.
There might not have been a second Karabakh war. Azerbaijan has been consistently offering Armenia very favorable trade and economic agreements for many years, and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline did not go through the territory of Georgia from a good life. But Armenia could receive oil and money for oil transit.
▇ The story of the Karabakh clan is the story of how one mafia-type group was able to take an entire country hostage and slow down the development of an entire nation for thirty years.
Now Azerbaijan is taking this clan down from the outside, actually working for the people of Armenia.
Pashinyan’s task, as I see it, is to finish it off inside. Armenia is doomed to have normal relations with its neighbors, and the less blood is spilled and the sooner the Armenian people and the state understand what their real interests are, the better.
