The speaker of the US House of Representatives could hardly have chosen the best time for her trip, as Yerevan doubted Moscow as a major ally.
Pelosi ignites debate in Armenia about importance of alliance with Russia” />
Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi has a reputation as a person who visits hot spots, writes Politico.
Her recent trip to Armenia sparked a debate about the country's political preferences. Crowds of people lined the streets of Yerevan hours before Nancy Pelosi's motorcade of seven shiny black cars drove into the center of the Armenian capital on Sunday.
Waving American flags, thousands gathered to see the speaker of the House of Representatives, who made a historic visit to the Caucasian country, becoming the highest representative of the United States since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
For years, Armenia has preferred to be a key strategic ally of the Kremlin, but now many are increasingly questioning whether Moscow can act as a guarantor of the country's security against the superior firepower of neighboring Azerbaijan, which launched a massive artillery barrage on Tuesday.
Read also: The foreign ministers of Armenia, Azerbaijan and the USA will meet in New York
As Russian President Vladimir Putin is mired in a war in Ukraine that is turning against him, Yerevan found that its calls for help from the Moscow-led security group, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, were being ignored.
This is a major strategic issue, as the enemy in Azerbaijan is generously supported by Turkey, a regional military heavyweight that Yerevan is associated with the genocide of the Armenian people during the First World War.
Thousands of people took to the streets of Yerevan, near the meeting place of the American delegation, demanding the withdrawal of their country from this Russian-led military partnership. Billboards depicting Putin were torn down, crowds chanted Pelosi's name, and demonstrators held signs reading “The CSTO is in the ass.
In recent years, Pelosi has developed a reputation as someone who flies to hot spots, and this year she visited Kyiv and Taipei.
The stakes in relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan are also high. The clashes are the most serious escalation since the two countries fought a brief but bloody war in 2020 over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which lies inside Azerbaijan's internationally recognized borders but is held by Armenian separatists.
This once hostilities reached the borders of Armenia. Azerbaijani ground forces seized several strategic heights in Armenia last week, and Yerevan says they seized 10 square kilometers of its territory before a tentative ceasefire came into effect the next day. However, that agreement is unlikely to be enforced, and officials have warned that another offensive may be imminent.
“We strongly condemn these attacks,” Pelosi said during a speech to Armenian officials. “The hostilities were initiated by the Azerbaijanis, and this must be recognized,” she added, asserting that “we are in the midst of a struggle between democracy and autocracy.”
Ahead of the trip, Pelosi also compared the situation in Armenia to the situation in in Ukraine and Taiwan, presenting the conflict as part of the global struggle against tyranny and oppression.
Armenia is consistently considered one of the freest countries in the region, with higher levels of human rights and press freedom than many other parts of the former Soviet Union.
At the same time, Azerbaijan has been ruled by a presidential dynasty for nearly three decades. father and son, and he often comes under fire from international organizations for restricting civil liberties and imprisoning journalists.
When Yerevan was offered the prospect of closer trade ties with the EU in 2013—a move that Ukraine seized on, which greatly increased tensions with Putin—Yerevan instead chose to reject Brussels in favor of a place in Russia's economic orbit.
The choice in favor of the Russians has hardly paid dividends, and Armenia is now in the background when it comes to who is more important in the region.
After a series of defeats in the 2020 war, Armenia was forced to cede a large part of territory in Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan. Under a Kremlin-brokered peace deal, thousands of Russian peacekeepers were sent to the breakaway region to prevent further attacks and protect the 100,000 ethnic Armenians living there.
Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan called on the CSTO to provide “military assistance to restore the territorial integrity of the country,” referring to the obligation to protect its members from invasion.
In 2020, the alliance refused to send aid to Armenia, saying that hostilities were taking place only on the territory of Azerbaijan. Now that the conflict is raging on both sides of the border, Pashinyan claims there are clear grounds for intervention.
However, Moscow's reaction was restrained. Russia agreed only to send a fact-finding mission, while Kazakhstan effectively refused to deploy troops. Moreover, the Russian peacekeeping mission has failed to prevent the advance of Azerbaijani troops into Nagorno-Karabakh in recent months, leading many Armenians to be skeptical of the decision to rely on the Kremlin.
Meanwhile, Azerbaijan has established a close partnership with NATO member Turkey, receiving large supplies of modern weapons from Ankara, which gives it a significant advantage over its neighbor.
Read also: How Russia is losing ground in the South Caucasus
Armenia's fears are heightened by the fact that the EU is also courting Azerbaijan, seeking to tap Baku's vast oil and gas reserves to replace Russian fossil fuels.
In July, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen signed an agreement with President Ilham Aliyev to supply Azerbaijan with 20 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year by 2027, calling the country “an important energy partner for us.”
Pelosi's condemnation of the Azerbaijani attack naturally received a less than happy reaction in Baku, which insists that Azerbaijan was only responding to shelling from Armenian territory.
While Armenia is becoming increasingly hostile to the Kremlin, Baku seems to be getting closer to it. Two days before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February, Aliyev met with Vladimir Putin, signing a comprehensive agreement that they said “brings our relationship to the level of an alliance.”
While the speaker of the US House of Representatives tours Armenia, its Russian counterpart, Parliament Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, is preparing to travel to Azerbaijan this month as part of a new diplomatic offensive.
Even more worrying for Armenians, who still hope for Russian support in the conflict, have become photos released Friday from a summit of Eurasian leaders in Uzbekistan show Putin relaxed and laughing during talks with Aliyev as well as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
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Finding himself isolated from his traditional allies, Yerevan could not have chosen a better time to host Pelosi, so that she could outline her priorities for Armenia's territorial security and sovereignty.
