The "Velvet Revolution" in Armenia in the spring of this year presented the country with new foreign policy challenges. In Russia, which is traditionally regarded as the protector of Armenia, it is uncertain whether and to what extent the new Armenian government can be trusted. Currently, the Armenian external borders with Turkey and Iran are protected by Russian soldiers, and since 1995, the 102th Russian military base with approximately 5,000 soldiers has been stationed in the small Caucasus republic. The country is also a member of the Customs Union, the Eurasian Economic Union and the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Armenia had renounced an association agreement with the EU under former President Sersch Sargsyan in favor of joining the Customs Union. However, after the revolution that brought down Sargsyan's government, the tone between Moscow and Yerevan became rougher.

First there was an incident involving Russian soldiers, which the new Armenian Prime Minister quickly called a "provocation". Several weeks later, the prosecution of the acting secretary-general of the Russian-dominated military union CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization), Yuri Khachaturov, began. This caused displeasure in Russia, so Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed his concern over the events in the Caucasus republic. Also, the initiated investigation against the second president of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan, who is regarded as a Russian-friendly politician and who sits on the Board of Directors of the Russian company "AFK Sistema", should probably not be well received in Moscow. In addition, the Russian judicial authorities refused to extradite former Defense Minister Mikael Harutyunyan, who is currently living in Russia, after the Armenian authorities issued an international arrest warrant a few days ago. According to media reports, Harutyunyan possesses Russian citizenship - and Russia generally does not deliver its citizens to foreign countries.

The Russian media (see Moskovsky Komsomolets, Lenta.ru, EADaily) critically points out that at least part of the new Armenian government team is "anti-Russian". It has also recalled that Pashinyan himself had campaigned for withdrawal from the Eurasian Economic Union when he was in opposition. In his function as prime minister, on the contrary, Pashinyan advocates deepening relations with Russia and distancing himself from his earlier statements. The conditions with Moscow are currently better than ever before, claimed Pashinyan on 10 September. However, the Kremlin seems to have other political preferences among the political forces in Armenia.

Robert Kocharyan as a dangerous opponent

The second Armenian President, Robert Kocharyan, who was arrested at the end of July but has been released two weeks later by the Court of Appeal, has already announced his return to politics. The politician is accused of "overthrowing the constitutional order" in the context of the controversial 2008 presidential election. He is currently not allowed to leave the country. Kocharyan is considered by some to be the most dangerous opponent of the politically less experienced Prime Minister. The ex-president is well connected in the Armenian and Russian media, has solid financial resources, comes from Nagorno-Karabakh and has a direct line to the Russian national leadership. The press service of the Russian President announced that Vladimir Putin called him on 31 August to personally congratulate him on his 64th birthday. The good personal relations between Putin and Kocharyan were not influenced by the current developments in Armenia, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. However, in the past few years, such "birthday calls" did not exist or were at least not reported through official channels. The fact that the alleged personal proximity between Putin and Kocharyan is increasingly coming to light within the context of Russia's increasing mistrust of Pashinyan leaves room for speculation as to whether this is not a political signal. In addition, Kocharyan gave two detailed interviews for the Russian TV channel "NTV" and the media agency "Sputnik". Kocharyan used these two interviews, which went without any critical questions from journalists, as an opportunity to criticize the new government in the strongest terms, partly because of their alleged mistakes in its handling of the relations with Russia.

Kocharyan, whose name is associated with the bloody suppression of the mass protests in March 2008, is unpopular in Armenia. But he plays for time. The longer the government under Nicol Pashinyan shows no significant political and economic successes, the stronger the domestic political pressure on the Armenian revolutionaries becomes.

No clear position on the conflict over Nagorno Karabakh

The contradictory position of Pashinjan on the matter of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict could also doom him, because this question is extremely sensitive to Armenia. First, he had stated that he could not hold peace talks with Azerbaijan on behalf of the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians and made the condition that the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic participates directly in the negotiations with Azerbaijan. He also sent his younger son to military service in Nagorno-Karabakh, which was proclaimed "patriotic" in Yerevan and condemned in Baku as "populist".

On 8 September, during a meeting with Armenian businessmen in Moscow, Pashinyan said that he considers Nagorno-Karabakh "part of Armenia", portraying himself as a "hardliner", yet this runs counter to Armenia's previous bargaining position. In the common Armenian interpretation, the breakaway region is considered an independent state. And in an interview for Kommersant, Pashinyan recently said that the occupied Azerbaijani territory around the enclave is also "constitutionally part of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh." At requests from the journalist, about which terms would then even be up for negotiation, Pashinyan replied that any talks about concessions from Armenia could be perceived as a weakness. In this context, he accused Azerbaijan of using martial rhetoric. The domestic opponents of Pashinyan criticize that his policy in regards to the question of Nagorno-Karabakh is not consistent.

In Azerbaijan, Pashinyan is apparently not taken seriously enough as a negotiating partner yet, because Baku does not want to conduct negotiations with Yerevan at the highest level until the domestic political situation in the neighboring country has stabilized. According to Pashinyan, the extraordinary parliamentary elections could take place this year, at the latest in May 2019. Only after Pashinyan has been legitimized by the elections, he will be regarded as a full-fledged decision maker in Azerbaijan.

Currently, Baku is reluctant, but does not rule out that "the new political forces in Armenia" could give the stalled peace process new momentum. The situation on the ceasefire line has remained relatively calm in recent months. The meetings between Aliyev and Putin have intensified: on September 1, the Azerbaijani head of state was officially visiting Sochi, and at the end of September, Putin's visit to Baku is expected. There is also a discussion in the Azerbaijani media about the accession of Azerbaijan to the CSTO, which was triggered by a statement by the member of the ruling party, Ali Huseynov.

Mass demonstrations as a source of political legitimacy

Pashinyan faction is the smallest one in parliament and thus he has very limited opportunities for action there. Although he is currently in a coalition with the faction of the oligarch Gagik Tsarukian, this is a political merger purely for power reasons. Apart from his own group, he cannot rely on any of the other parties represented in parliament. "Some political forces want to sabotage the revolution by allying with the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA)," he said on 10 September. The largest parliamentary group is composed of the deputies of the former ruling party RPA. The new government wants to change this by dissolving the parliament and calling new elections. However, Pashinyan’s plan does not yet have the support of the parliamentary majority.

The numerous supporters of Nikol Pashinyan, whom he is still able to mobilize for mass demonstrations, as shown by his 100-day demonstration in August, are currently the only source of his political legitimacy that enables him to keep political opponents at bay. In such a fragile situation, the new Armenian government is seeking to obtain diplomatic, political and economic support from both Russia and the EU. Pashinyan, for example, wanted the EU to provide more development money for Armenia. However, the EU has yet to comply with this request.

Lack of trust from Russia

The two previous meetings and three phone calls between Nikol Pashinyan and Vladimir Putin were also apparently not enough to secure Moscow's support. Therefore, the Armenian Prime Minister traveled to visit Putin for the third time on 8 September. The Russian President's assistant, Ushakov, said before the two leaders' meeting that Putin and Pashinyan would have "an honest and serious conversation" on the many unanswered questions.

After the meeting Pashinyan said that the Armenian-Russian relations were "brilliant", actually "better than ever". There are no problems between Moscow and Yerevan, the head of the Armenian government emphasized. Pashinyan also announced that Armenia would carry out a humanitarian mission in Syria together with Russia. That seems to be the only practical result of the meeting, which is also not a new one. Already at the mass demonstration on the occasion of the first 100 days of his reign Pashinyan had predicted an "unprecedented Armenian-Russian initiative" in the humanitarian field.

Pashinyan and Putin also exchanged views on gas prices in Armenia and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Last but not least, they also talked about the future of the Armenian presidency in the CSTO. The prosecution of the OSCE Secretary-General, Yury Khachaturov, could lead to the presidency of the organization moving to Belarus in the autumn of 2018. Pashinyan's government wants to prevent such a scenario by any means insisting that the post of the CSTO Secretary-General should be granted to Armenia until 2020 and that General Khachaturov must be replaced by another Armenian representative. Should Armenia actually lose the post of secretary-general in the organization, it would be perceived as a serious foreign policy failure of the new government and taken up by Pashinyans opponents. Nikol Pashinyan was apparently unable to reach an agreement on this issue with Putin on 8 September. This issue needs to be discussed with all CSTO member states (Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Belarus and Armenia). "If we come to a consensus, we will communicate that," Pashinyan said in an interview with the Russian newspaper “Kommersant".

Shortly after Pashinyan's visit to Putin, "Kommersant" made fun of an article on the Armenian government delegation that was "more numerous than the Chinese". The article suggests that Pashinyan's crew did not know the protocol rules, while the Prime Minister himself tried to gloss over the state of Russian-Armenian relations.

Unlike the head of the Armenian government, the Kremlin did not comment on the outcome of the meeting. However, three days after Pashinyan's trip to Russia, footage of a wiretapped phone call between Armenian National Security Service chief Artur Vanyetsyan with Sasun Khachatryan, head of the Special Investigation Committee, was leaked to the media and published by several news websites. From these recordings, the authenticity of which was confirmed by Artur Vanyetsyan, it is clear that the judge had received political instructions from the government to arrest Robert Kocharian and Yuri Khachaturov. This scandal should weigh heavily on the new government. Who has listened to the telephone calls of the Armenian intelligence services and posted them on the internet remains still unclear.