ON THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE FRAGILE POST-ELECTION PERIOD

By Armenian Democratic Association of Belgium, 15 June 2026

The troubling developments of the six years following the war have brought Armenia to such a profound crisis that remaining indifferent is no longer possible.

As a small part of the Armenian Diaspora, we feel compelled to express our sincere views regarding this situation that deeply concerns us and to offer proposals on what we believe are the most critical issues facing our nation today.

The recent elections took place under the dual pressures of Turkish demands and threats on the one hand, and Russian pressure on the other.

After yielding to those demands, Prime Minister Pashinyan turned to his own people and declared:

“If the Civil Contract Party fails to secure a constitutional majority, we will face a devastating war in September!”

This alarming message was, from the outset, an attempt to manipulate the electorate’s free choice, and there is little doubt that it had its intended effect.

At the same time, a threatening and demeaning election campaign against pro-Russian opposition leaders, coupled with politically motivated prosecutions and similar statements that sowed hatred toward the people of Artsakh, further poisoned the political atmosphere.

And all this came from a prime minister who, for years, had responded to Aliyev’s provocations of the same kind with remarkable patience and near-total silence.

Overly “constructive” toward his adversaries abroad, yet at home willing to go as far as “uprooting” his political rivals.

Amid this dangerous internal polarization, this has emerged as the most destructive factor of the recent period.

The harsh reactions from Russia, aimed at influencing Armenia’s political direction during the election campaign, further deepened these contradictions.

Opposition forces aligned with Russia also played their part in worsening this course of events.

First and foremost, by refusing to acknowledge their own share of responsibility for the defeats of the past, by ignoring the public’s deep frustration with them, and by relying on financial power to dominate the opposition camp, they prevented credible alternatives from emerging and, in the eyes of a disillusioned public, made the current administration appear preferable once again.

A policy that seeks to appease, through submission, the two neighboring states that threaten Armenia’s very existence in the aftermath of Artsakh cannot guarantee peace.

Yes, war must be avoided. But the course being pursued can neither avert that danger nor prevent other attempts to dismantle what remains of Armenia.

The Prime Minister’s so-called policy, ostensibly aimed at preventing these dangers and securing Armenia’s sovereign existence within its internationally recognized borders, is in fact a profoundly misguided and dangerous course, one that serves precisely the opposite purpose.

The “True Armenia” slogan, which he puts forward as an ideology, together with all the rhetoric surrounding it, is in reality the product of a mindless pragmatism stripped of any ideological substance, one that believes Armenia can secure itself merely by yielding to every demand placed before it.

This may benefit not Armenia’s independence, but the continuation of his own rule.

For while Pashinyan boasts that he has made the Republic of Armenia “more independent than ever before,” in reality he is subordinating Armenia’s governance to the will of two Turkish states through an arrangement with the United States, reducing Armenia to the status of their vassal.

“True Armenia” is, above all, a politics devoid of honor, one that seeks to erase historical memory, renounces national values and symbols, suppresses the sense of justice, lends legitimacy to genocide denial, and declares that the struggle for Artsakh was wrong from the very beginning.

A dishonorable peace will not curb the enemy’s appetite for swallowing even more.

In situations where no way out remains, seeking refuge in the enemy’s mercy may become an option, especially when that enemy is a neighbor with whom one is condemned to coexist.

But this raises an unavoidable question: is mercy inherent in the nature of these two neighboring states? We cannot answer that question in the affirmative.

Indeed, they may one day decide that even keeping Armenia as a vassal is unnecessary and choose instead to divide and erase it between themselves.

Undoubtedly, what further aggravates the situation is the fact that Armenia’s foreign policy options are extremely limited, and each comes with its own serious problems.

There is nothing wrong with advocating balanced and diversified relations with Russia, the United States, and the European Union. China, another major power, should also be part of that equation.

Yet a small and vulnerable Armenia does not possess the room for maneuver enjoyed by Turkey, or even Azerbaijan. They can dance with all sides at once; Armenia cannot.

When it comes to Armenia, however, the message is always the same: “You cannot sit on two chairs at once. Choose a side.”

We must reject this unjust demand, insist that we are no one’s servants, and yet act wisely, fully aware of the limits of our own capacities.

The Meghri route, effectively handed to the United States instead of Russia, has been even more problematic in this respect.

Had Armenia, after the defeat, chosen to open the Meghri route under Russian control in accordance with the trilateral agreement imposed by Russia as the sole intervening power, it might have been possible to preserve what remained of Artsakh, together with its Lachin connection.

Instead, recognizing Azerbaijan’s “sovereign right” over Artsakh not only led to the loss of Artsakh, but also opened a new opportunity for the two Turkish states to pursue their “Zangezur Corridor” objective.

This time, the United States entered the scene and threw its own weight into the region’s geopolitical equation.

This unsettled both Russia and Iran.

Russia, in turn, interpreted Armenia’s application for European Union membership as a move directed against itself and threatened to remove Armenia from the Eurasian Economic Union, thereby pushing it toward economic crisis.

Should tensions escalate, the possibility of Russia carrying out a military intervention in Armenia as well, after what happened in Georgia and Ukraine, cannot be taken lightly.

It is clear that Russia has recently left Armenia, a country it considers an ally, dangerously exposed, and that it also sacrificed Artsakh, which had always remained loyal to it, once its convergence of interests with the Turkish powers prevailed.

For this reason, Russia cannot be trusted. Yet the risk that antagonizing Russia could bring a new catastrophe upon Armenia cannot be denied either.

Since our history is also full of similar examples of betrayal by Western states, turning away from Russia and toward the West would not be any safer.

Iran, too, must be taken into account as a natural ally and as a regional power capable of balancing the two Turkish states.

For this reason, we advise that the concerns created by the TRIPP project be neutralized through arrangements that would be acceptable to both Russia and Iran.

It would also be wise to pursue a bilateral agreement and military cooperation with Iran for the security of the threatened Syunik region.

During the election campaign, Aliyev’s “Western Azerbaijan” rhetoric, raised by the opposition precisely because of this risk, was met with angry responses from Pashinyan, such as “Do not come to us with Azerbaijan’s narratives.”

Pashinyan dismissed it as a baseless claim that terrorized the Armenian people for no reason, even characterizing it as “hooliganism.”

Yet Aliyev has been advancing the demand for the “return of 300,000 Western Azerbaijanis to their ancestral lands” at international conferences and forums, inviting Armenia to “engage in dialogue with the Western Azerbaijan Community” for this purpose, and demanding an official response to his call.

He had even attempted to secure legitimacy by submitting the final declaration of the “Right of Return” conference, held in Baku on December 5-6, 2024, to the United Nations General Assembly.

Pashinyan stated that this issue had not been raised in relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

In that case, the question must be asked: if Aliyev did not raise the issue in bilateral relations, should Pashinyan not have raised it himself and demanded an explanation from him?

This policy of “pretending not to hear” is presented as a deliberate stance against falling into Aliyev’s trap.

Yet, on the contrary, leaving the issue unanswered means leaving the field wide open to Aliyev’s claims in the eyes of a world largely unaware of the matter.

It is especially important to officially declare the unacceptability of any unilateral demand for return, since the forced migrations of that period, between 1988 and 1991, were mutual, and the number of Armenians who fled Azerbaijan was three times greater.

Azerbaijan’s aim in imposing this so-called return is to alter the demographic structure of Syunik, Vardenis, and Gegharkunik, and then to sever those regions from Armenia.

There are videos showing that Azerbaijan, together with Turkey, has been developing plans inspired by Turkey’s 1939 annexation of Hatay and its 1974 Cyprus model.

For this reason, the issue must be taken seriously, and no room should be left for faits accomplis.

The external attempt to force Armenia to amend its Constitution is not based on any written agreement and amounts to interference in its internal affairs. Armenia therefore has no reason to feel bound by it.

If a constitutional majority cannot be secured in Parliament, Pashinyan’s prior verbal commitment also loses its validity.

Having tied the signing of the Peace Agreement to this condition, Aliyev’s attempt to impose in practice something that is legally impossible would constitute an even more blatant form of interference in Armenia’s internal affairs.

Taking a firm stand against this demand would allow Armenia to seek external support for removing that pretext and moving toward the signing of the peace agreement.

If Azerbaijan nevertheless insists on such illegitimate demands, this will not work in its favor.

For this reason, Armenia must be able to act with confidence and determination in the diplomatic arena.

The condition for standing strong externally is the ability to forge unity at home around a minimum consensus, despite all internal contradictions.

Beyond exposing and correcting violations that affected the parliamentary arithmetic, contesting the election results would be meaningless.

A demand for complete annulment and new elections will not gain acceptance, just as any attempt to change the government through street demonstrations would serve no purpose other than to escalate tensions.

Even a repetition of the situations witnessed in recent years would be exhausting, while worse scenarios would harm Armenia externally rather than benefit it.

For this reason, what the opposition must do is use both its strength in Parliament and public actions that serve as a warning to put a stop to the Pashinyan administration’s overly concessionary policy and to know how to restrain it.

As for the Prime Minister, after the promises he made during the previous election campaign to defend Artsakh resolutely, he must make a serious reckoning with the concessions that led to its loss and with his present policy, which has now turned into agitation in the opposite direction.

He must also understand that his sharp reversal on Artsakh, together with his attitude of calling the reality of the Genocide into question and thereby giving credence to Turkish denialism, has caused a certain erosion within his own base.

In the Turkish media, taking encouragement from his ambiguous and questioning rhetoric, and of course through distortion, they now claim: “Pashinyan says the Armenian Genocide is a lie!”

Therefore, what we expect from him is to come to his senses and adopt a more serious stance.

He must wake up not out of concern for votes, but because, if he continues in the same way in this new period, there will be nothing left to protect.

His claim that 100 percent of the votes cast for his own party in the last election were “organic,” while 100 percent of the votes cast for the other parties that entered Parliament were “collected through bribery,” together with his assertion that “not a single person voted for them without being paid,” constitutes an unprecedented act of collective slander that places hundreds of thousands of people under suspicion.

Yet after such a result, one would have expected him to say something positive, such as “As the Prime Minister of those who voted for me and those who did not, I embrace everyone.”

In addition, his threats against rival parties, his declared intention to throw all three leaders behind bars, his move to depose the Catholicos and bring the Church under his control, and his practice of having his critics arrested one by one all point to a deeply troubling resemblance to the authoritarianism whose recent example we have witnessed in Turkey.

The fact that, over the past eight years, the Prime Minister failed to take effective steps to shed light on the bloody events for which former President Kocharyan is held responsible, or to expose major corruption, yet now emphasizes his determination when Kocharyan once again stands against him as a candidate, shows that he is acting more out of political calculation than out of legal necessity.

We therefore deem it necessary to bring these important matters to the attention of the Prime Minister and his team as issues that they, for their part, must correct, and we call on politicians from all sides to act with greater responsibility for Armenia’s future.

All those who have held or shared power in Armenia since independence bear primary responsibility for the situation in which the country now finds itself.

They have been complicit, to varying degrees, in plundering the state budget and squandering the values that belong to society.

The current administration claims to differ from its predecessors in the fight against corruption, yet the picture does not appear so clean, and the practice of benefiting in various ways from the privileges of power continues.

They have also all served the interests of other states instead of the interests of their own country and society.

Today, each accuses the other without confronting their own sins.

Through a language of mutual anger and hatred, seeds of hostility are being sown and artificial polarizations are taking shape.

This course is dangerous, as it carries the risk of leading to internal strife.

Whatever side we may stand on today, we, as the Armenian people, must struggle against rhetoric and actions that seek to turn us against one another.

Let us not resort to cheap accusations such as “traitor,” “sellout,” “deserter,” and the like.

Let us express our thoughts and criticisms constructively.

As Armenians, we have passed through countless hardships and ordeals over thousands of years, including long periods without a state, and have managed to reach the present day.

Our collective resilience can be said to have withstood the test of history.

Individually, many of us are intelligent and gifted.

With the accumulated wisdom that comes from the depths of our history, we have the strength to overcome these difficulties as well.

What is needed is for us to step outside the schemes surrounding us and secure our unity and cohesion.

Instead of placing ourselves under the protection of one global power or another imposed upon us, or surrendering to the will of an enemy that threatens our very existence, let us develop a defense concept based on reliance on our own strength.

Let us strengthen our national unity with an understanding that also draws on the multifaceted support of the Armenian Diaspora, and let us work together to shape the most appropriate foreign policy course.

Only by acting in this way can Armenians, who today are so deeply weary, anxious, and disheartened, regain their strength and determine their own future.

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