Armenia should stop chasing “Historical, greater Armenia” but try its best for “present, real Armenia” PM Pashinyan told Turkish journalists.
Our short visit (*) to Armenia with a group of journalists from Türkiye allowed us to interview Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and talk to the country’s leaders.
It is possible to summarize Pashinyan’s policy as ‘If you don’t have a big brother, it is best to make peace with the people in your neighborhood’.
If the first step for making peace with the neighborhood is a peace treaty with Azerbaijan that recognizes the territorial integrity and borders in between, the second step is opening the land borders with Türkiye which have been closed for years.
Armenia knows that putting the second step ahead of the first and getting results will force the Azerbaijani leadership to the table. Armenia wanted to give the message ‘We are ready to open the border immediately’ in the most appropriate place.
They thought taking Turkish journalists to the Margara border gate overlooking the majestic silhouette of Mount Ararat was ideal for this.
But here is the fate of journalism
While we were sitting at our computers, watching the Armenian border guards waiting for visitors not coming through the Alican border crossing on the Turkish side, the real news was being finalized behind the scenes.
When we left Yerevan in the early morning and landed in İstanbul, we were greeted with breaking news from Anadolu Agency.
The report about the ‘Agreement on Peace and Establishment of Interstate Relations’ between Armenia and Azerbaijan said that a compromise had been reached on two articles insisted on by the Azerbaijanis, and the draft had been finalized.
The Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan, however, continues to state that ‘an amendment to the Armenian constitution that would remove the claims against Azerbaijan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity is a precondition for the signature of the negotiated text’.
Pashinyan has an answer to this question.
But let that be the subject of another article; let us look at how we got to this point.
When there are no ‘big brothers’
We were brought up with an unchangeable opinion: ‘Armenians have eyes on our land, they want land from us.’
Those who questioned the basis for this belief would immediately be referred to the ‘Declaration of Independence’ in the preamble of the Armenian Constitution and Article 11 of that Declaration, which states that ‘The Republic of Armenia supports the task of ensuring international recognition of the 1915 Genocide in Ottoman Türkiye and Western Armenia’ and the 1989 resolution on ‘Reunification of the Armenian SSR and the Nagorno-Karabakh Region’.
To see where ‘Western Armenia’ extended, it is worth looking at maps of all sizes and colors produced by irredentist-nationalist movements from ASALA to the Dashnak Party. (**)
Of course, another policy that went hand in hand with the quest to legitimize the ‘territorial claim’ was the international campaign for 1915 to be defined as a ‘genocide’.
As a result, every year, starting in March, politicians and journalists in Türkiye would be on the lookout to see which country would use the ‘G-word’ (Genocide) in its April 24 statement, and they would take solace in the fact that countries that did not want to have a fall out with Türkiye would say ‘Medz Yeğern’ (Great Catastrophe).
But now we face developments that will change these decades-long habits and we have a ‘game changer’.
Not ‘Greater’ but ‘Real Armenia’
Let me start with an observation: Armenian police met us at the passport control at Yerevan airport. On my previous visits, Russians were sitting in the control booths. As of 1 March, the border guards, the last remaining Russian soldiers in Armenia, had been withdrawn.
(Later, by coincidence, we learned that the booths where the Armenian police were sitting were brought from Türkiye via Georgia, which is another observation).
Thus, the last visible shreds of Russian support for Armenia- military, political, economic, and even ecclesiastical – have disappeared.
This rupture, which upset the balance in the Caucasus, is the first development that requires us to change our habitual thinking.
The second development took place on the ground, where Azerbaijan invested heavily in its military power, backed by Turkish (with Israeli and Pakistani) support, and took Karabakh back from Armenia in a swift operation. More than 100 thousand Armenians living in the region took refuge in Armenia. Thus, the ‘Gordian knot’ was cut and the Karabakh problem, which had been blocking all kinds of ‘processes’ in the Türkiye-Azerbaijan-Armenia triangle for years, was solved.
The end of a dream
Karabakh becoming an Azerbaijani territory again means the end of the dream of ‘Greater Armenia’.
And now, the government in Yerevan is trying to construct a new national narrative to replace ‘Greater Armenia’ and primarily to convince its own public opinion of this new narrative.
This narrative, the details of which were revealed by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in his televised speech on 19 February, is called ‘Real Armenia’ and begins with the following statement:
‘The real Armenia is the internationally recognized Republic of Armenia with an area of 29,743 square kilometers.’
Continuing, this narrative says, “Your homeland and your future is where you eat your bread”, and it undoubtedly faces a strong constituency of local opposition and Diaspora groups who strongly support the notion of a “historical” homeland that encompasses not only present-day Armenia but also regions from Türkiye and Azerbaijan.
This is why it is important to pay close attention to Pashinyan not only to journalists from Türkiye but also to his own public opinion.
For example, after the decision to hand over four villages on the Armenian border to Azerbaijan in May 2024, while demonstrators on the streets were calling for Pashinyan’s resignation for ‘treason’, the Prime Minister ‘broadcast’ his ‘address to the nation’ on his Youtube channel and said the following:
We need to stop our search for ‘historical Armenia’. This is the only way to build and strengthen the Republic of Armenia. Otherwise, we will spend our already limited resources on a ‘search for a homeland that undermines the future of the homeland and the state.”
“Genocide no longer a priority”
Prime Minister Pashinyan argues that a new Constitution is necessary for ‘Real Armenia’. But will this new Constitution not include a reference to the ‘Genocide’? When we ask this question, Pashinyan gives an ‘iconoclast’ answer criticizing Armenia’s long-standing policy for the international recognition of the ‘genocide’ :
“Our official position is that international recognition of the Armenian Genocide is not among our foreign policy priorities today. This is an official statement. The Medz Yeghern (Great Catastrophe) cannot be denied, forgotten, or rejected … because it is an undeniable fact for all of us. But the problem is not about that… when the parliament or the government of a distant country makes a decision, we are greatly inspired by that decision. But when the euphoria or joy of that decision fades, the question arises: What does this decision do for us regarding our relations with our immediate neighborhood? When we experience tensions in our immediate neighborhood, to what extent do these tensions contribute to stability, peace, etc. in our country, in our region?… peace and good relations are necessary primarily in our immediate neighborhood, in our relations with our closest neighbors. Because it is the peace here that produces tangible results for the security and prosperity of our country.”
‘Peace here’ is a phrase to be carefully noted.
Let me return to the point I started with: The Armenian Prime Minister now realizes that ‘Big Brother’ is not in the game.
However, ‘Big Brother’ may return to the neighborhood at any moment.
Everyone should keep this possibility in mind and not waste time.
Notes
(*) A group of journalists from Türkiye and I were in Yerevan on 10-12 March at the invitation of the Orbeli Analytical Research Centre. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan gave a long interview to the Turkish media for the first time, we had off-the-record (Chatham House rules) meetings with other officials. We also visited the Margara Border Gate, the Armenian side of the Alican Border Gate on the border with Türkiye.
(**) It was dear Hrant Dink -who was assassinated on January 19, 2007- who opened the eyes of the Turkish public opinion on the absurdity of the ‘land demand’, as he did on many other issues. His statement ‘We Armenians have our eyes on this land. We do because our roots are here. But don’t worry, not to take these lands and leave, but to go to the bottom of these lands.’ Let us remember his words with longing once again.
