The main goal of the recent press conference by PM Nikol Pashinyan of the Republic of Armenia (RA) is to further adapt the public to the idea that Armenia’s authorities have no chance and have no particular desire to keep Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh). Political technologist Vigen Hakobyan told Armenian News-NEWS.am about this.
"That was perhaps the most important message [of that press conference]. The second main goal was to reaffirm that the RA authorities are in major geopolitical trade. On the one hand, it was once again said that Russia is not the guarantor of the RA security and even, according to Nikol Pashinyan, the military-political alliance with Russia poses a threat [to Armenia]. On the other hand, it was said that this ‘flirting’ with the West is not particularly fruitful either, and Azerbaijan, by achieving some result, after extracting another concession, as Pashinyan says, Azerbaijan is making fundamental changes to the draft of the document called the ‘peace treaty.’ I believe it [i.e., the Armenian PM’s press conference] had these two main messages, it had mainly the geopolitical and domestic political message," said Hakobyan.
When asked why there was talk about a “5th pillar” in this press conference when there was also a risk of military escalation, Hakobyan said that Pashinyan himself admitted that his geopolitical flirtation is not yielding serious results because his goal is to form a system of international guarantors as an alternative to Russia.
"But as life has shown and Pashinyan also admitted, yes, Russia's allied guarantees are not anything; indeed it is so. But, nevertheless, it is also not being possible to create an alternative security system because those potential guarantors have other geopolitical and geoeconomic interests. That is why, when it is not possible to bring the ‘era of peace’ [noted by Pashinyan] closer, then its alternative can always be escalation [of tension], and Nikol Pashinyan prepares the Armenians of Armenia and Artsakh that ‘we did everything, we were even ready for excessive concessions, but Azerbaijan did not take that step, and an institution of guarantors was not formed, and that is why there may be an escalation [of tension], and Pashinyan and his team cannot have any fault in this, as they do not have any guilt.’ And in this case, it is necessary to find the reason for further collapses in the future; that is, who was to blame in the war because of which Armenia was defeated; it was about the ‘5th pillar.’
The ‘5th pillar,’ in my impression, is the generalitat that infiltrated the army under the former [Armenian authorities], the highest officer composition, and since, according to Pashinyan, the RA power structures are full of agents and the RA power structures were formed in Russia, therefore the ‘5th pillar’ must be connected with Russia. On the one hand, the topic of the former [Armenian authorities] is not directly raised, on the other hand, messages are again sent to other geopolitical centers that certain processes will take place against the ‘5th pillar’ in Armenia, which will occupy and also distract the streets from the main topic, which will get another ‘chewing gum,’" the political technologist said.
