Armenia: Peace or betrayal?
In Armenia, the draft peace agreement with Azerbaijan, hailed as a diplomatic breakthrough by the government, is experienced by a large part of the population as a humiliating capitulation. Between massive demonstrations against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and growing anger towards US Ambassador Kristina Kvien — accused in particular of covering up the controversial activities of American “biolabs” —, another story is emerging, ignored by the European media.
An explosive climate that BAM!’s contacts in Armenia forcefully reveal to us.
A peace agreement or an imposed dismantling?
The draft peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan, presented by Nikol Pashinyan’s Armenian government as a historic step forward, is meeting with strong rejection in Armenian society. For its critics, this text does not represent a first step towards a balanced reconciliation, but rather the ratification of a military and diplomatic failure that violates a fundamental principle of international law, by rewarding Azerbaijan territorially for its armed aggression against the Armenians living peacefully in Nagorno‑Karabakh.
The terms of the future treaty, still partly opaque, crystallise concerns on several sensitive points. The absence of any mention of the right of return of the some 150,000 Armenians driven out of Nagorno‑Karabakh in 2020 and 2023 is perceived as an abdication in the face of ethnic cleansing. Likewise, the silence on the withdrawal of Azerbaijani troops from Armenian territories occupied since 2021 - including certain sovereign areas recognised by the UN - sets a dangerous precedent by legitimising territorial acquisitions by force, contrary to Security Council resolutions 822 (1993) and 853 (1993).
The prospect of amendments to the Armenian constitution imposed by the envisaged peace treaty - the removal of references both to Nagorno‑Karabakh and to the Armenian genocide - is experienced by the Armenian street as a symbolic surrender. “You do not make peace by erasing your own history,” protest the demonstrators who have been demanding Pashinyan’s resignation for months.
The government argues that these painful concessions are the inevitable price for ending thirty years of conflict and avoiding new wars. But its opponents retort that an agreement signed under duress, without solid international guarantees or reciprocity mechanisms, would be nothing more than a precarious truce before the inevitable next round of Azerbaijani aggression.
This controversy goes beyond the regional framework: it raises a burning question about the effectiveness of the current international system in protecting the territorial integrity of small states not aligned with the United States against more powerful neighbours. While the UN has consistently reaffirmed the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force (Resolution 2625), the agreement in preparation seems to acknowledge the powerlessness of these principles in the face of military aggression by force that enjoys Washington’s de facto approval.
An ancient people facing systematic extermination
Since at least the 6th century BC, Armenians have lived and prospered on the “Armenian Highlands”, a territory stretching from the Mediterranean to the Caspian Sea. From Constantinople to the far reaches of the Caucasus, their physical presence, passed down from generation to generation, marked this vast expanse of some 300,000 km², where they lived under various empires. As the first Christian nation, from 301, the Armenian roots in this region embodied a continuity that was believed to be unshakeable. But since 1895, a relentless process of extermination has been under way: the Hamidian massacres (1895), the Adana pogroms (1909), the genocide of 1915, the ethnic cleansing of the 1920s after the Turkish‑Armenian war, the anti‑Armenian violence in Istanbul in the 1950s and then the 1970s, the attacks in Azerbaijan at the end of the 1980s (Ganja, Sumgait, Baku), where many Armenians still lived, up to the aggressions of 2020 and 2023 against the peaceful Armenian population of Karabakh, on its ancestral lands. From this historical territory of several hundred thousand square kilometres, every corner of which bears the imprint of a rich history made of events, figures, tales and legends, the Armenian presence has steadily receded. Its population was gradually exterminated, and its cultural traces systematically erased, until by 2020 it occupied an area of only 41,201 km². Since 2023, following the last two offensives, Armenians have lost a further 11,458 km² and today live on only 29,743 km² — less than 10% of what was, for millennia, their national and cultural cradle. A recent history which, from the Armenian point of view, would justify strong international support — which they do not receive. Support that should be clear and unambiguous, particularly from the Europeans, to whom they feel close and whom they view with goodwill. A history that also makes the new concessions made by the Pashinyan government, despite determined popular opposition, all the harder to accept in Armenia. |
Growing calls for Pashinyan’s resignation
Nikol Pashinyan - Prime Minister of Armenia (Alexis Sciard)
Faced with what they consider an outright capitulation, Pashinyan’s critics – a strong popular mobilisation, former leaders and intellectuals, the political opposition, influential members of the clergy of the Armenian Apostolic Church and a significant part of the diaspora – are multiplying calls for his resignation. They blame him in particular for bearing overwhelming responsibility for the military defeats of 2020 and 2023, but also for having subsequently gradually abandoned all negotiating levers without obtaining any tangible concessions in return. He represents what is perceived as a genuine abdication of the national interest.
His opponents accuse him of being about to sacrifice Armenian sovereignty by accepting constitutional amendments under Azerbaijani pressure; of abandoning the fundamental rights of the Armenians of Karabakh by accepting that no mention be made of their right of return in the peace agreement; of giving in to territorial blackmail without obtaining the withdrawal of Azerbaijani troops from the occupied areas in Armenia itself (in the regions of Syunik and Gegharkunik); of having weakened the country’s diplomatic position by entering into opposition with Russia from 2018 onwards, effectively sacrificing any serious security guarantee for the country.
Indeed, Nikol Pashinyan came to power in 2018 following the “Velvet Revolution”, on an anti‑Russian platform backed by the West, which promised a break with Moscow. Since then, his relations with Russia, Armenia’s traditional ally, have deteriorated significantly, particularly after Pashinyan’s rejection, in 2019‑2020, of a regional settlement plan proposed by Russia (known as the “Lavrov Plan”) which would have involved the deployment of additional Russian forces in the region and an agreement on the status of Nagorno‑Karabakh. In 2020, Pashinyan also turned down a Russian proposal to modernise Armenia’s air defence equipment – yet a few months later Azerbaijan’s Turkish drones were a key element of military superiority that sealed the Armenian defeat.
According to his critics, Pashinyan rejected these friendly offers of Russian protection, which would undoubtedly have prevented, or at the very least significantly reduced the severity of, the Azerbaijani offensive of September 2020. These refusals of Russian help are often cited by Pashinyan’s critics as major strategic mistakes that left Armenia vulnerable to the Azerbaijani offensive that came shortly afterwards.
Regular demonstrations have been taking place in recent weeks in Yerevan, where thousands of people chant “No peace without dignity!” and demand early elections. For them, Pashinyan, weakened and discredited, can no longer claim to represent the national interest. “A government that precipitated defeat cannot be the one to lead the reconstruction” is, in essence, what can regularly be heard or read in Armenia. The political crisis is lasting, and many believe that only political change could allow Armenia to negotiate an agreement on dignified terms – or at least not to sign a humiliating capitulation under duress.
Demonstrations also directed against the American presence
Kristina Kvien - US Ambassador to Armenia
A wave of anger against the American presence has also been shaking the Armenian capital in recent weeks, where thousands of demonstrators gathered in front of the US embassy, brandishing placards denouncing the alleged American “biological laboratories” and calling for the head of Ambassador Kristina Kvien. For the opposition, these events are merely the symptom of a deeper crisis: an Armenia betrayed by its leaders and abandoned to a Western influence deemed harmful.
The demonstrations, reported around 22‑23 March according to testimonies shared on social media, saw crowds chanting slogans such as “No biolabs, no Kvien!” or “Out with the ambassador of shame!”. The protesters accuse the United States of operating a dozen secret bacteriological laboratories on Armenian soil – facilities funded by the Pentagon, officially to contribute to health security by testing pathogens, but perceived by many as a threat to national sovereignty and public health in Armenia. “These laboratories are a time bomb under our feet” is, in essence, what can be read in Armenian accounts, which echo suspicions of dangerous biological research. The opposition is demanding the immediate closure of the biolabs and that Kristina Kvien be declared persona non grata, accusing her of complicity in what her critics describe as “Western instrumentalisation”.
But who is Kristina Kvien? In post since March 2023, this experienced American diplomat was chargé d’affaires in Ukraine at the time of the Russian intervention. From the Armenian‑American community in California, she was sent to Yerevan to strengthen ties with Washington. For her critics, she embodies an intrusive American policy that is pushing Armenia into a risky instrumentalisation by the West, to the detriment of its historic alliance with Russia. “She is fuelling Pashinyan’s pro‑American madness, while our lands are occupied and our people exiled” is, in essence, what can be read from the popular opposition, which points in particular to the lack of effective US pressure on Azerbaijan, despite Joe Biden’s recognition of the Armenian genocide for show in 2021.
Kvien is accused of direct interference in Armenian affairs, by supporting a government deemed illegitimate by a significant part of Armenian civil society. Her role in stepping up joint military exercises with the United States, such as Eagle Partner 2024, is seen as a gratuitous provocation towards Moscow, leaving Armenia vulnerable to its hostile neighbours. “She subjects us to the West’s confrontational strategy, seeks to turn us into a second Ukraine, without getting anything in return” is, in essence, the view of her critics in Armenia. It should be noted that “turning Armenia into a second Ukraine” is, according to our sources, what is heard at the highest level from European political leaders who are “friends” of Armenia.
For the opposition, Kristina Kvien is not just a diplomat: she is the symbol of an Armenia adrift, trapped between hollow Western promises aimed exclusively at instrumentalising its situation in the service of a bellicose Western strategy, and a political class concerned above all with its own hold on power, and ready for that purpose to sacrifice national identity and security. As calls for her resignation intensify, these demonstrations and the issues of which they are the symptom reveal a reality on the ground very different from the picture one might form by relying solely on the European media.
By Nicolas Mertens, citizen journalist for BAM!
Illustration: Yerablur military cemetery, in Yerevan (Armenia), on 27 September 2022 (Chris Huby)
