The necessity of Armenia’s…..

Vahe H. Apelian

 

I purposely had the title of this blog end with dots, simply because I did not want to title it the way I had intended to, that is to say; “The necessity of Armenia’s peace initiative”, concerned of the negative reaction and responses it may illicit right away. I do not want to give impression that what I reason and hence advocate, has any merit in the overall scheme of things that is Armenian. But I believe that each Armenian should formulate his or her stand. Mine has been in favor of Armenia’s peace initiative.  I reason that Armenia has no other alternative and after the second Artsakh war Armenia lost, Armenia’s peace initiative is out of necessity.

Much like any other country, Armenia cannot go on without a policy vis-à-vis its immediate neighboring neighbors be it Turkey and Azerbaijan with which Armenians have a tortured relationship spanning over centuries to this day. In plain view of the world, Azerbaijan occupies Armenian lands which was an Armenian enclave in Soviet Union and was known as the Mountainous Karabagh Autonomous Oblast in Armenian – Լեռնային Ղարաբաղի Ինքնաւար Մարզ. Oblast is a Russian Slavic word which means “a region ruled over”. MKAO was ruled over by the Soviet Union but was administratively tied to Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan up to the time when the Soviet Union imploded and its component states, such as Azerbaijan and Armenia, and enclaves. such as Abkhazia, Ossetia much like MKAO carved their own state. But, no war and no peace state Armenia led since 1994, led to the disastrous 44-day Artsakh war.

The counter argument to the peace initiative has been that Armenia cannot sign a peace agreement with countries that intend to destroy it. Turkey’s and Azerbaijan’s policies have been just that; obliterate Armenia as a state in the Caucasus. They have not shied to state it publicly during / before the war (read:http://vhapelian.blogspot.com/2020/10/what-does-turkish-media-say.html ) and after the war (read: http://vhapelian.blogspot.com/2020/11/post-november-10-2020-what-does-turkish.html). 

But the fact of the matter is that, as Edward Jerejian said the other day at the NAASR organized webinar, that you make peace with your enemies. There is a fine, yet an existential distinction between signing a peace agreement and capitulating to an enemy. Surely the intend of the victorious Turkish and Azerbaijan forces during second Artsakh war was the outright capitulation of Armenia. But it ended with the tri-lateral agreement to cease the war at the cost of thousands of Armenian young lives over a war that tenaciously was fought and lasted 44 days. We all know what transpired.

It is said that Armenia needs to be strong to guarantee the viability of the peace initiative. But that is no argument! It is sort of telling someone that you need to breathe to survive. Not even for a second I doubt that Ararat, figuratively speaking and also referring to Armenia’s foreign minister, do not know that, as the FM leads Armenia’s peace initiative the government pursues out of necessity. The fact of the matter is that, as stated above, after the first Artsakh war, over a quarter of century of no war and no peace led to the disastrous second Artsakh war and there is no assurance that no war and no peace will not lead to the third war that will be Armenia war. 

Time will tell whether Armenia’s peace initiative will succeed or not, but it should not fail. Like any other policy, there is and there will be a hefty price to pay. Of course, Armenia will need security quarantines to trust Azerbaijan’s signing the peace initiative. But as Reagan famously noted to Comrade Gorbachev, “trust but verify”.  Had there not been those considerations I reason  Armenia would have long ago signed a peace treaty.

The Swiss are armed to their teeth and have institutionalized militia in a way no other country has done it, even though Swiss are multiethnic. They are Swiss Germans, French-speaking Swiss, Italian-speaking Swiss and so forth. Regretfully, time again has indicated that the Armenians do not have that caliber of citizenship, in case of Republic of Armenia, and that level of understanding, in case of the Armenians in diaspora. Had we institutionalized militia, it would have given each Armenian a front-line ownership for securing Armenia and hence a sense of control over his or her destiny. There will not be an institutionalized militia in Armenia in my lifetime. The only institution that will guarantee Armenia’ security is the state and the government that is democratically elected to lead the state and command its armed forces.

Consequently, I chose to stand with the government the citizens of Armenia have democratically elected and rally its peace initiative. 

We will either make or break.