But let us intentionally leave this guessing aside. Let the Armenian public deal with that. We will focus on something else.
Armenia started playing with fire on the border again right amid another round of provocative diplomacy by official Paris. And almost simultaneously, the Armenian government sent the Rome Statute to the National Assembly for ratification.
You may recall that on March 17, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin and Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova. Armenia has been taking its time to ratify the Rome Statute, but now, with Putin’s warrant in place, it has decided to give it a go. This is a clearly unfriendly move against Moscow, obviously prompted by the French. A neat multi-pronged scheme: Armenia ratifies the Rome Statute at the prompting of Paris and in the hope of future French dividends, and Macron strikes a painful blow to Putin from the Armenian direction, with France then returning the favor by helping Armenia in the Azerbaijani, or rather, anti-Azerbaijani direction. This is how Armenia used to receive payment for loyalty from the Kremlin in the form of weapons or even Russian mercenaries. Now the same scheme is being transposed to the French track.
In theory, Macron would seem to have every reason to pop the champagne. He has hit Putin using Nikol Pashinyan; with some political imagination, one might even think that he has lured Moscow’s favorite outpost into his camp and gotten even with the Kremlin for all the hurtful pokes and prods in Africa, where Russia is kicking France out of its former colonies. Besides, it is supposed to be Azerbaijan that will pay for Armenian love.
Easier said than done. We will not speculate whether there are real agreements with Paris or whether gestures and hints were perceived in Armenia in this way. It is no secret that in the Paris-Yerevan relationship, France “loves with its tongue” and Armenia “with its ears”, and these “ears” can always choose to hear not what is there, but what they want to hear.
The game is different now. Azerbaijan will suppress provocations on the border, and it will do so firmly. After the defeat in the 44-day war, Armenia simply does not have an army that could pose a real threat to Azerbaijan. They expected and still expect their foreign patrons to fight for them. But will France do that at a time when it lacks military resources not only to help Ukraine, but even to preserve its own colonies in Africa, from where the “Gallic rooster” is being kicked out so hard that it goes flying all the way to Paris, tumbling through the air faster than the sound of its own crowing?
It can dump on Yerevan armored personnel carriers produced back in the seventies, but not fight against the Azerbaijani army. Paris would have preferred Armenia to do all the “work” on its own and the rewards to go to France. But Yerevan counted on France to pull chestnuts out of the fire for it and is already expressing dissatisfaction with the “passivity” of Paris.
Thus, Macron will face another defeat and a devastating geopolitical disgrace in the Armenian direction. Simply because Paris, with its Napoleonic plans, has once again neglected reality.
The consequences will be even more tragic for Armenia, which Paris simply used with no intention of sacrificing much for it.
Incidentally, a hundred years ago, France conned the Armenian politicians from Perry with their inflated wants and demands in the exact same way. But it seems that Yerevan did not learn these pages of its history, too busy with the tales of the Arshakids, Bagratids and “Greater Armenia”. And history punishes ignorance very painfully.
Nurani
Translated from Minval.az
