Armenian authorities need urgent snap elections 'to avoid worst-case scenario' over Artsakh – Armen Ashotyan

The situation around Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) prompts a scenario of urgent snap parliamentary elections in Armenia to save the current authorities from a crucial breakdown in the ongoing peace negotiations, according to Armen Ashotyan, a vice leader of the former ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA).

At the round-table debate Adekvad-Discourse (organized by members of the Adekvad party), the politician warned of a process very close in subtance to what was left behind by their political team as a negotiating document "with numerous losses".

Ashotyan pointed out to both temporal and “agenda-related” losses undermining the advantages of Armenia.

“The trilateral statement [adopted by the Armenian and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers and the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmanship] in Bratislava emphasizes only the need to expand the office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office - without any regard to the necessity of deploying monitoring [mechanisms],” he said, highlighting Armenia’s positioning as the second loss in the process.

“While Armenia’s  [trump card] used to be the ‘white figures’ in the negotiation process  – especially after the April War – today, we are pursuing the game with the ‘black’ ones, having essentially lost our image,” he said, adding that Armenia’s one-time image of a constructive negotiating party (as opposed to Azerbaijan’s non-constructive stance) has faded away over the period.

Ashotyan also blamed the authorities for inaction and boastfulness, a trait of behavior which has said “has returned a very aggressive issue to the agenda”, i.e. – that of the “Azerbaijani community of Artsakh”.

The Republican vice leader said he also sees a decline in the message behind the capitualization of last year’s “revolutionary” developments.

“It was, of course, originally simplistic to believe that the positioning of democratic Armenia and Artsakh would offer us any negotiating advantages against the backdrop of an authoritarian regime like Azerbaijan. Only people who are miles away from Realpolitik, geopolitics and regional security policies can think that way. That thesis, obviously, does not work,” the politician added.