Pashinyan Ally Downplays Armenian-Russian ‘Differences’ over Peacekeepers

Meanwhile, a phone call between Pashinyan and Russian President Vladimir Putin was reported on Monday.

The Armenian prime minister’s office did not specifically mention the issue of peacekeepers as being discussed by the two leaders. It only said that “issues related to the situation around Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as ensuring security on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border were discussed.”

“In this context, the importance of the full implementation of all the agreements of the leaders of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan of November 9, 2020, January 11, and November 26, 2021 was reaffirmed,” the brief statement said.

Talking to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service last week, political analyst Tatul Hakobyan, referring to Pashinyan’s statements made during a cabinet meeting on August 4, described the language used by the Armenian side as “primitive blackmail.” But blackmail, he warned, is far from being the best tool in dealing with Russia. ”We want to get rid of one thing, but have nothing to replace it with,” he said.

Gegham Manukyan, a member of the opposition Hayastan parliamentary faction, said it was not clear to him how the Armenian side sees the way of raising the effectiveness of the Russian peacekeeping operation in Nagorno-Karabakh. But he outlined his faction’s vision for that. ”We should first discuss the issue of raising the number of Russian peacekeepers [deployed in Nagorno-Karabakh]. Secondly, we should reconsider the way the Russian force is deployed in separate directions. The Armenian side’s initiative of mirrored withdrawals, even if implemented, should be done in conditions of full control so as to avoid situations similar to what happened in the village of Parukh [in March] and in the northwestern part of Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh – ed.] in recent days.”

Manukyan would not comment on Pashinyan’s statement regarding the possibility of considering “additional international mechanisms” if solutions within the Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani format fail. He said that the statement was not clearly formulated and could be just a “word game,” while there is no official information to suggest this is a realistic plan.

A multinational international peacekeeping operation was discussed as part of the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process before the 2020 war. But after Russia brokered a ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan to put an end to six weeks of bloodshed in the conflict zone, the other two Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group co-chairs – the United States and France – welcomed Moscow’s peacekeeping operation, although US President Donald Trump talked about the possibility of deploying ‘Scandinavian peacekeepers’ in the region during the war itself.

Swedish journalists recently revealed that one week before the Moscow-brokered ceasefire was signed, on November 2, 2020, the US co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, Andrew Schofer, discussed such a possibility with Swedish officials. Although, according to the media investigation, that proposal was rejected by Stockholm.

In the wake of the recent escalation in Nagorno-Karabakh, a small group of Armenians displaced from the region by the 2020 war and its consequences picketed the Russian embassy in Yerevan demanding that Russian peacekeepers “properly carry out” their mission. They also staged rallies in front of the embassies of France and the United States as well as the United Nations office in Yerevan, calling for an international peacekeeping operation in Nagorno-Karabakh.