Incident in the Armenian parliament: what cards revanchists like to play

The day before, opposition Armenian media enthusiastically shared footage from the parliament showing Narek Karapetyan “proudly” refusing to take the map of the real Armenia that was being distributed to the deputies. After this incident, a tense situation arose at the meeting, and Speaker Ruben Rubinyan and Karapetyan even stepped aside to sort things out in private.Refusing to take the map of the real Armenia means rejecting the peace agenda. The government of Nikol Pashinyan has declared a departure from the traditional destructive agenda of Armenians, but the opposition continues to firmly adhere to the old principles, hoping to make political capital out of them.

Karapetyan Jr.’s action sparked shouts of delight among the audience sympathetic to the revanchists. However, this gesture once again clearly demonstrated why the opposition failed to win the elections. She chose the wrong tactic, believing that Pashinyan was making everything up, and that Armenians actually didn’t want to give up other people’s territories and were ready to keep turning their lives into hell for the sake of the unhealthy fantasies of ideologues from a hundred years ago. This was a strategic mistake by the opposition, which ended in failure. The revanchists lost not only to Pashinyan, but also to public opinion, which is not on their side at all. Armenian society no longer wants war. The events of the past six years, to put it bluntly, have straightened things out.

If the plump one from the Karapetyan clan had taken the map, he might have been taken for a kind of serious politician. But now he looks like a child who is pushing away a spoonful of medicine and doesn’t understand that he will still have to swallow it.

The opposition misjudged the situation from the very beginning. Strangely enough, Armenia’s defeat in the war didn’t become a weapon against Pashinyan. The revanchists expected that they wouldn’t even have to make any effort — the people would overthrow the “loser” on their own. This was a grave mistake, based on the assumption that every Armenian dreams of Karabakh and is ready to go to any lengths for the sake of “from sea to sea.” The 2021 elections should have been the first serious warning — not even a warning, but a bell?ringing signal — for the revanchists, but they chose to continue deceiving themselves.

The new generation of the opposition, represented by Karapetyan the younger, is trying to continue the destructive work of the aging team, foolishly choosing the same wrong strategy. The times when it was possible to gain political capital by making territorial claims against neighbors are over. And the newly minted deputy looked very foolish.The day before, at a briefing in parliament, Taron Chakhoyan, a deputy from the Civil Contract party, stated that talk of “surrendering territories” at least provokes a smile among the public. This was his response to the opposition’s narratives that, after delimitation, the authorities are planning to “surrender new territories.” Chakhoyan noted that discussions about ceding territories and granting some kind of extraterritorial corridor (we’re talking about the Zangezur corridor — ed.) have been going on since 2020.

"What territory cession are we even talking about? This is a long?deflated bubble. Our society understands very well what is actually happening,” Chakhoyan said.

According to a deputy from the ruling party, the thesis about “territory cession” worked only for a short time after the war. Chakhoyan also stated that the opposition’s expectations and hopes that tensions will arise between Armenia and Azerbaijan at some point or that another border conflict will occur are futile. The opposition, he said, wants to take advantage of this, take to the streets, and gather people around them, hoping that in this way they will be able to change the government. But that will not happen. Peace will be long?lasting. And their dream will not come true, the pro?government deputy promised.

Despite the unpopularity of revanchist slogans, the opposition is not giving up. Its main task today is to thwart the amendments to the Constitution and prevent the signing of the peace treaty. It hopes to buy time until the Armenians “awaken.” The opposition believes that Armenians have not yet recovered from the shock, and once they do, they will immediately remember that hatred is the main driving force for achieving the “Armenian dream.” The revanchists do not hide their intentions. At the same briefing in parliament, Ishkhan Saghatelyan, a deputy from Kocharyan’s “Armenia” faction, stated outright that the coming months would be difficult for the country, and the opposition should prepare in advance to resist the authorities’ initiatives. He promised that all attempts by the authorities to amend the Constitution through parliament would fail.

The amendments to the preamble of the Constitution of Armenia are indeed the most pressing issue today. This is because Pashinyan’s party lacks the votes to resolve it within its own majority. The “State Duma” needs six votes to avoid a general vote. The revanchists know this and promise to do everything to prevent Pashinyan from persuading any of the “wavering” deputies. They don’t care that retaining a reference to the Declaration of Independence in the preamble of the Basic Law will place Armenia in the category of toxic states. It will remain a factor of destabilization, and this will put an end to all the positive processes that have been underway in the region over the past year or two. Azerbaijan has taken quite a few unilateral steps towards the former aggressor as bonuses ahead of the signing of a final and long?term peace. However, the signed peace will be lasting only if the country’s Constitution does not leave any loopholes for revanchists — today or in the future — to cause new destabilization.

If someone thinks that the overhaul of the Armenian Constitution and the peace treaty are needed personally by Azerbaijan, then that is a big mistake. More precisely, it is self?deception. All of this is needed primarily and above all by Armenia itself. If territorial claims against Azerbaijan and Turkey remain, the borders will not open. If Pashinyan fails to turn the situation around, Armenia will remain isolated. We are not even talking about the problems for Armenia’s territorial integrity itself in the event of a new conflict.

Most likely, Azerbaijan will not stop the transit of goods and fuel supplies as long as the authorities manage to keep the revanchists in check. And that is all the Armenian side can count on. Azerbaijan cannot sign a peace treaty and establish diplomatic relations with a country that emerged by incorporating Azerbaijani territories, has occupied Azerbaijani lands for thirty years, and continues to lay claim to them. In this sense, the changes to the Constitution of Armenia are not an internal matter for the Armenian side. It will become an internal matter for Armenia only after the Basic Law of the Republic of Armenia is brought into compliance with the norms of international law and ceases to infringe on the interests of its neighbors.

The amendments to the preamble of the Constitution of Armenia are indeed the most pressing issue today. This is because Pashinyan’s party lacks the votes to resolve it within its own majority. The “State Duma” needs six votes to avoid a general vote. The revanchists know this and promise to do everything to prevent Pashinyan from persuading any of the “wavering” deputies. They don’t care that retaining a reference to the Declaration of Independence in the preamble of the Basic Law will place Armenia in the category of toxic states. It will remain a factor of destabilization, and this will put an end to all the positive processes that have been underway in the region over the past year or two. Azerbaijan has taken quite a few unilateral steps towards the former aggressor as bonuses ahead of the signing of a final and long?term peace. However, the signed peace will be lasting only if the country’s Constitution does not leave any loopholes for revanchists — today or in the future — to cause new destabilization.

If someone thinks that the overhaul of the Armenian Constitution and the peace treaty are needed personally by Azerbaijan, then that is a big mistake. More precisely, it is self?deception. All of this is needed primarily and above all by Armenia itself. If territorial claims against Azerbaijan and Turkey remain, the borders will not open. If Pashinyan fails to turn the situation around, Armenia will remain isolated. We are not even talking about the problems for Armenia’s territorial integrity itself in the event of a new conflict.

Most likely, Azerbaijan will not stop the transit of goods and fuel supplies as long as the authorities manage to keep the revanchists in check. And that is all the Armenian side can count on. Azerbaijan cannot sign a peace treaty and establish diplomatic relations with a country that emerged by incorporating Azerbaijani territories, has occupied Azerbaijani lands for thirty years, and continues to lay claim to them. In this sense, changes to the Constitution of Armenia are not an internal matter for the Armenian side. It will become an internal matter for Armenia only after the Basic Law of the Republic of Armenia is brought into line with the norms of international law and ceases to infringe on the interests of its neighbors.

The peace treaty is a huge concession on the part of Azerbaijan. And the ruling party is well aware of the responsibility lying with Yerevan. Currently, as Chakhoyan said at the briefing, the page of the “Karabakh movement” is closed de facto, but not de jure. To close it de jure and ensure long?term peace, it is necessary to remove references to the Declaration of Independence from the Constitution.

That’s absolutely right — as long as claims to Azerbaijani lands are not excluded de jure, the threat of conflict will persist. In Azerbaijan, they have long since shed their rose?tinted glasses and no longer believe in words.

Nikol Pashinyan faces a very difficult task. He will have to wage a tough battle against a revanchist clique. The incident with the map of real Armenia and the tension that followed is a warning from the opposition.

In principle, Pagshinyan has already proved that he is able to cope with the situation, so there is still hope for a positive outcome. Raking out the revanchist "manure" in the Augean stables of Armenia's domestic political field is not an easy task. Let's see what the Prime Minister's successes will be. He really hoped that he would be able to make peace without solving the problem with the Constitution, knowing what serious problems awaited him. Baku insisted. And Pashinyan had to openly admit: “If we adopt a new Constitution today, and the preamble of the Constitution contains a reference to the Declaration of Independence, this will mean that we are continuing the Karabakh movement. If we continue the Karabakh movement, this will mean that we are resuming the conflict with Azerbaijan, and if we resume the conflict with Azerbaijan, this will mean that peace is impossible.” “If we refer to the Declaration of Independence, it means that we accept the discourse of ‘Western Armenia,’ and indirectly we accept the discourse of ‘Armenia from sea to sea,’” Nikol Pashinyan said.

These ideas have already led Armenia into a dead end from which it may never emerge.

So it would be better if Narek Karapetyan took a map of the real Armenia. The revanchists don’t like the fact that it is smaller than the one Armenians have been used to seeing for thirty years. But these are just empty worries. It’s better to think about how to ensure that in the future, real Armenia does not become smaller than its current borders.