Russia is trying to keep Syunik under its utmost control – Ara Papyan

Speaking at the end-of-the-year news conference, Ara Papyan, a member of the National Democratic Axis Bord and the head of the Modus Vivendi Center, spoke about the trends seen during the past year, the forthcoming challenges and opportunities.

“It is obvious that the confrontation has deepened over the past year, there is a certain escalation in the world. From our point of view, on the one hand, there is the Russian-Turkish-Azerbaijani cooperation, which is directed against the interests of the Republic of Armenia, the interests simply do not coincide, on the other hand, there is the role of the West, which is gradually becoming more active. If in the spring of last year it was still not clear in the US what the policy against Russia would be, then since June-July, changes have taken place, especially after the online summit for democracy in December, we can say that the West should increase its role in the region and create new opportunities for us,” Papyan said.

He explained that the NDA is not an anti-Russian but a pro-Armenian force.

“Russia is acting against us based on its interests, and we, based on our interests, must be with the West, particularly with the United States,” Papyan said. He also stressed that there is a “Lavrov-2” plan, the tendency and desire is to completely subjugate Artsakh to Russian influence.

“One of the reasons for the 2020 war was that the United States deepened its isolation over the election. As we saw because of COVID-19, the anti-Armenian forces took advantage of the implementation of Lavrov’s Plan 1. It is not a secret that there is, conditionally speaking, the Lavrov-2 plan, there is that tendency and desire to subject Artsakh completely to Russian influence, maybe to Russian political control. And we see that the so-called authorities of Artsakh are its supporters.

The other tendency is that Russia is trying to put Syunik under its control as much as possible, for that it uses the Turkish-Azerbaijani threat. By aggravating that danger, they want to put us in front of a choice that our only choice is to rely on the Russians. We do not accept that because we have a bitter experience. “We do not accept that, because we have a bitter historical experience; we understand that Russia will not support us if it is guided by its interests,” Papyan said.

He concluded that there are some positive changes in the issue of moving Armenia’s relations with the United States to a more practical field, and in 2022, there will be positive developments for Armenia.