The prime minister is talking about a peace treaty that does not exist. That’s why Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is peace’s biggest enemy, Armenia’s second president Robert Kocharyan said on the “Big Politics” podcast, commenting on Pashinyan’s statement that if Civil Contract fails to secure a constitutional majority in the elections, a disastrous war will begin in September.
“This is manipulation too. There is one paper with no legal force, and so much has been said about it that it now seems like an actual document. And now they are making forecasts based on that paper. If he truly had the gift of analysis, would he have gone to Artsakh and said, ‘Artsakh is Armenia’? A person who has no analytical ability at all, who does not know what cannot be done in foreign relations, is now saying he understands things well. Zero understanding,” he said.
Kocharyan said that the head of the Civil Contract faction had declared a week before the 2020 war that there was no danger of war and that Turkey would not get involved, even though by then “the Bayraktars had already been deployed in Azerbaijan.”
Asked whether there would be no war under his rule, Kocharyan replied: “Of course not.”
“The paradox is that he is trying to link the danger of war to a person during whose presidency the calmest years took place. Previously, it was Aliyev who voiced such threats; now it is him. I do not rule out that tomorrow they will voice them as a duet,” Kocharyan said.
He also said that TRIPP has come into conflict with the Crossroads of Peace concept, because the crossroads idea implied the unblocking of roads.
“TRIPP creates a situation in which Azerbaijan is linked to Kars by the railway under construction, and all the other routes become uninteresting. A country’s leader must first seek out the largest markets for economic development and the shortest routes to them. A program that the United States and Azerbaijan needed for very specific purposes replaced an idea that envisages opening all routes, both rail and road,” Robert Kocharyan said.
He also noted that transporting cargo from Armenia to Russia through Azerbaijan is 700 kilometers longer than moving cargo from Armenia through Georgia via the Abkhazia route.
“Why are we not focusing on opening these routes? Our main trade turnover is with Russia; with Europe, it is through Georgia; if we speak about the Arab world, then it is through Iran; if it is India or China, then again it is via Iran. What is Azerbaijan’s territory supposed to be needed for, apart from trade with the countries of Central Asia?
Given that Georgia’s relations regarding European Union membership are frozen, given that Georgia should have enormous interest in having a railway connection with Russia, and given that this is also economically beneficial for Georgia, Russia, and Abkhazia. Now is the most favorable period for negotiations in this direction. There are no major political obstacles. What is the main political obstacle? Primarily Georgia-Abkhazia relations. Only one thing needs to be done: separate the economic project from the political disagreements,” Kocharyan said.
