Nikol Pashinyan has taken Armenia on a long journey, and brought it close to peace with Azerbaijan. Few if any believed that he could achieve what has been done so far. It is true that Azerbaijani military superiority, the victory in 2020, and the puzzling events of September 2023, which saw the overnight collapse of the Armenian political project in Nagorno-Karabakh and the subsequent exodus of the entire Armenian population from the territory, in many ways pre-determined what is about to follow. But given the entrenched nationalist positions and hard-line narratives that have traditionally characterised Armenia’s political thinking, even these developments were not enough to guarantee peace. The last part of the journey had to be done in the minds of Armenians, and Pashinyan set about doing this with conviction and determination, challenging the narrative of a historical Armenia, that is only the imagination of the nationalist elites and advocating instead, "a real" Armenia with fixed border.
Over the last days, what seems to be the last spasms of resistance to Pashinyan, emerged on the streets of Yerevan in the form of a Movement called “Tavoush for the homeland”, led by Archbishop Bagrat Galastanyan. For a moment it seemed to have attracted traction of the mass of the population: a rally on 9 May was attended by tens of thousands. But then it started fizzling out. The Archbishop said that he was taking time out from serving God, to instead run for prime minister, even though technically he cannot because he has dual citizenship. Increasingly he started looking like an oddity, instead of a leader of a mass movement about to seize power. There are still those who follow him daily on the streets. Some claim that this has been the usual rent-a-crowd, that has been typical of Armenian opposition attempts at popular protests in the past. It does not take much effort to see the difference in the passion and the demeanour between these crowds, and the ones that in 2018 catapulted Pashinyan to power.
It is clear that the quest for Armenia-Azerbaijan peace is reaching some kind of end game. There are still several elements on which there is no agreement, but given the distance covered so far, these now look unlikely to constitute an obstacle for going forward. The two sides are now pondering how to bring the negotiations to a successful conclusion, including in the choreography of signing a peace agreement. In the current scheme of things, this is important.
In November the South Caucasus welcomes in Baku COP29 – the biggest gathering of world leaders ever to descend on the region. Some consider that this may be a good moment for an agreement to be signed, and sealed with some dramatic big gestures. Many are now convinced this will happen. But the spoilers may still try to put spokes in the wheels, which is why the Armenian and Azerbaijan leaders need to remain focused.
