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Karabakh Clan and Armenia

With the counterattack of the Azerbaijani army against the Armenian occupation in September 2020, a new status quo has emerged in the South Caucasus. Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, accepted this situation earlier than his rivals, forced by internal or external conditions.

Pashinyan, who came to power after the “Velvet Revolution” in 2018, was thrown into populist nationalism in a short time, contrary to the messages he gave to the domestic and international public before the war. But after the defeat, for different reasons, he turned to getting closer with Azerbaijan and Turkey, normalizing relations and accepting the peace offer of the victorious side. Thus, it became one of the actors that took action to ensure that the region attained the peace and ready environment it has needed for decades. Armenian actors inside and outside Armenia are perceived as parts of a single whole. However, there are different views and movements due to many historical, cultural and political factors both within the diaspora and within the borders of the Armenian state. This distinction and difference became even more evident after the victory of Azerbaijan in the Second Karabakh War. This policy of Pashinyan, who supported President Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who tried to keep relations with Ankara and Baku at a minimum level in the 1990s, draws the reaction of ultra-nationalist and oligarchic structures in the country. The coalition formed by these structures is governed by the “Karabakh clan” that ruled Armenia for twenty years as of 1998, and the Armenian branch of the historical Dashnak Party.

As a matter of fact, Pashinyan faced many assassination allegations and military memorandums in the period following the defeat; The expansionist and nationalist rhetoric that he smelt benefited his political rivals.

Pashinyan’s Turn to Populist Nationalism and the Road to War

Pashinyan’s political struggle and activist career started early. In 1995, at the age of 20, he was expelled from the university due to his political views and stepped into a journalism career.In 2004, a bomb was planted in his car. With the initiative he founded in 2006, called “Alternative”, he demanded the resignation of the leaders of the “Karabakh clan” Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan. He supported former President Levon Ter-Petrosyan in the 2008 presidential elections, but after the defeat he stepped down as opposition leader. After the May 1 demonstrations, which resulted in the deaths of ten activists, an arrest warrant was issued for him. He surrendered to law enforcement in 2009, was sentenced to seven prison terms, but was released in 2011 amnesty. 2018 was the turning point for Pashinyan, who left Ter-Petrosyan with the “Civil Contract” he founded in 2013. The constitutional amendment and electoral engineering undertaken by then President Sarkisyan to prolong his power came face to face with the “My Name” Alliance of Pashinyan and his supporters. The demand of the activists, who resisted the chronic corruption problem in Armenia and their lust for power, was met with Sarkisyan’s resignation on April 23. Pashinyan, who has become the symbol of the “Velvet Revolution”, came to power in May 2018. This victory of Pashinyan also meant the end of the power of the Soviet era elites.Among the important factors that brought Pashinyan to power was the leadership charisma that would be damaged in the post-Second Karabakh War. This charisma, which was also fed by his ten-year activist career and political struggle, resulted in 70.44% of the votes in the first election following the course of the “Velvet Revolution”. However, it was a fact that the alliance of the forces that have dominated Armenia since its independence, namely the “Karabakh clan” at the center of the oligarchic structure, and the extreme nationalist-racist political groups, would force the new prime minister to transform.This change took place in a short time. He made his first “abroad trip” to Nagorno-Karabakh. This situation was born out of a kind of necessity for Pashinyan, as a matter of fact, for the first time in 20 years, a non-Karabakh person came to power in Armenia. During his Nagorno-Karabakh “trip” in August 2019, he started to play populism and appeal to the ultra-nationalist-racist segment that is strong in the country, by pronouncing the word miatsum (unity). The Prime Minister, who came to power with the slogan of revolution and innovation, thus began to increase his legitimacy and to play with fault lines in the region where daily conflicts were already continuing. Having already set out with a young and inexperienced staff; It was a difficult situation for it to survive on its own by continuing the discourses of democracy and peace for a long time in an ultra-nationalist structure that ruled a country that was closely tied to Russia militarily, politically and economically. On the other hand, embracing populism and nationalism in Armenia, which is struggling with structural problems and whose economy has been shaken by a double shock, is an irrational but time-saving solution. One output of this policy is the revisionist foreign policy. What the Armenian administration, army and public have difficulty in comprehending is that on the other side, Azerbaijan has used its resources skillfully and gradually seized military superiority over the years. But for Pashinyan, the real destruction began to come with the Armistice Agreement signed with Azerbaijan and under the guarantor of Russia on November 9, 2020. Following the ceasefire, protests broke out in Armenia. His duel of words and impeachment crisis with the military at the end of February 2021 resulted in a military memorandum by senior generals. As of March 1, thousands of protesters and opposition gathered in Yerevan. The Prime Minister announced that early elections would be held on 20 June and received 53.95% of the votes. Pashinyan, who was remembered with a historical defeat, remained in his office by preserving his historical legitimacy and base. However, since March, there are two groups that united the anti-Pashinyan front, which continue to fight against the government and its “submissive policies [to Azerbaijan and Turkey]”: the Hayastan (Armenia) alliance led by former President Kocharian and the Dashnak Party.

Dashnak and “Karabakh Clan” Alliance from Past to Present

The basis of the criticism and heavy accusations against Pashinyan is the Armenian Prime Minister’s policy of peace with Azerbaijan and “normalization” with Turkey. Pashinyan’s defeat caused him to strip off his populist and expansionist outfit. The fact that he faced the threat of assassination and then a coup in Armenia, and still maintaining his legitimacy in the eyes of the Armenian community, who voted for “not peace but the possibility of no war”, led him to turn to this pragmatic and rational policy. More important than the normalization messages given by Pashinyan as of the end of August 2021 was the statement he made on the thirty anniversary of the founding of the “Artsah” Republic: “We understand well that nations cannot survive, be competitive and develop in the twenty-first century unless suitable conditions are provided for economic and scientific progress. So the stability of the external environment and lasting peace really becomes a necessity for all peoples in the region. At the end of the weeks when tensions were high in the Armenian Parliament, Hayastan leader Koçaryan and Deputy Speaker of the Parliament and Ishan Sağatelyan, one of the leaders of the Armenian branch of the Dashnaks, called for “resistance” against Pashinyan and the “Turkification of Armenia”. The roots of this alliance, in which extreme nationalist-racist politics and oligarchic structuring go hand in hand, actually go back to the late 1990s. The EDF, which started out with the promise of autonomy, federalism and decentralization to the resident Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, was founded in Tbilisi in 1890. Over time, the Dashnaks, who participated in the revolutionary movements in Iran, Russia and Turkey with the influence of socialist and nationalist ideologies, propaganda and terror apparatus, became the dominant political organization in the Armenian diaspora after they were banned in the Soviet Union in 1921. During the Cold War, the Dashnaks, who struggled with the Soviets and communism, got closer to the USA.EDF (Armenian Revolutionary Federation), which became legal after Armenia regained its independence, was banned during the term of the first President Ter-Petrosyan, who was known for election irregularities. The struggle between the Dashnaks and Ter-Petrosyan marked the first ten years of the young republic. This struggle spread to many different areas, from the relations of interest between the diaspora and Armenia, Ter-Petrosyan’s policies towards Azerbaijan and Turkey, from the political atmosphere in the country to the First Karabakh War. The reason for the ban on EDF was that EDF, which spread to different countries of the world, was considered an externally linked and externally financed political structure. The second half of the 1990s was quite difficult for Ter-Petrosyan. The deepening of the chronic problems of the economy as a result of the war and the inadequacy of reforms was the main reason for the reactions against Ter-Petrosyan. The main reaction against the administration came from the communists and the Dashnaks. Poverty-related migration and the accompanying democratic problems increased general dissatisfaction. By 1998, Ter-Petrosyan had lost the support of the people. However, the main development that led to his fall from power was that he adopted a stance close to reconciliation with Azerbaijan on the Karabakh issue. Ter-Petrosyan resigned in 1998. Afterwards, Koçaryan won the election with the support of the Dashnaks. In fact, the Kocharian-Dashnak alliance started in 1992. Kocharyan was elected president of the de facto Nagorno-Karabakh (DK) regime on December 22, 1994, with the support of the EDF. Kocharyan, who came to power in Armenia 4 years later, pleased his allies in a short time: The imprisoned Dashnak members were released, the party newspaper Yerkir (Ülke), which was closed in December 1994, returned to its publication life, and the EDF became a government partner by becoming legal again. With the rapid rise of Kocharian, the elite and inter-oligarch interest group called the “Karabakh clan” began to exert its influence in Yerevan in a short time. The “Karabakh clan” that spread to Yerevan after gaining strength in the DK regime and gained influence there included names such as Kocharyan and Sarkisyan, Leonard Petrosyan, who was promoted from the DK Prime Minister to the Deputy Defense Minister of Armenia, and Andranik Margaryan, the Armenian Prime Minister’s Advisor. The “Karabakh clan” became the dominant force in Armenian politics for the next 20 years, with the assassination of the then prime minister and security elite in 1999, who balanced this group. This situation created a division in the country’s politics as Hayastantsi (Armenian Armenian) and Garabagtsi (Karabakh Armenian). While the idea of ​​Armenia having a say in the DK regime and the occupied territories became widespread over time, the reality was the opposite of this situation. While consolidating its dominance over Armenia, the “Karabakh clan” did not establish an asymmetrical relationship; He established a relationship based on interdependence, in which two political structures instrumentalized each other. The Dashnaks never forgot the support of the “Karabakh clan”, especially Kocharian. The Armenian branch of the party experienced its heyday under Kocharyan’s rule, when it surpassed the 5% threshold in 2007 and took 16 seats in the Parliament. They became members of the government again. He became the junior partner of Sarksiyan’s Republican Party, which was identified with tutelage and corruption in the memory of the Armenian people. EDF, which became legal again after Ter-Petrosyan and won the right to participate in the elections again as of 1999, was able to get seats and be represented in the parliament until 2017. The party’s highest vote rate to date was 13.16%, and it was able to elect 16 deputies. Sarkisyan, who took over from Koçaryan, continued his policy of alliance with the Dashnaks. But in this period, there was the first and sharp disagreement between the two groups, even a break. The Dashnaks took action against the rapprochement policy of the other leader of the “Karabakh clan” Sarkisyan and Abdullah Gul in Turkey and protested Sarkisyan. The EDF did not openly support Sargsyan in the 2012-2013 parliamentary and presidential elections. However, in the next elections (2017-2018), the Sarkisian and Dashnak alliance was re-established and was victorious. According to Armenian Weekly, one of the Dashnaks’ media organs in the USA, when the “Velvet Revolution” broke out, they left the Sarkissian coalition and supported Pashinyan.

Ultra-Nationalist Structure and Corruption Network Against Peace

The destruction caused by the Second Karabakh War in the Armenian political field shook the Pashinyan government with allegations of assassination and coup d’etat, and led to the formation and strengthening of an ultranationalist alliance within the country. This alliance is discursively based on the legacy of the Dashnaks and the “Karabakh clan” economically and politically. EDF members and leaders with considerable support, especially Koçaryan, continue to exert political pressure on Pashinyan despite their defeat in June 2021, call on the Prime Minister to resign, and oppose negotiations that could lead to peace and prosperity in the South Caucasus for decades. The point where this contrast first stood out was the corruption investigations launched after the “Velvet Revolution”. Coming from a corruption activism, Pashinyan kept his promises during the “Revolution” and targeted the political, bureaucratic and military figures that came to the fore during the Kocharyan-Sarkisyan rule. The allegations extended to Gazpro Armeniya, which is owned by the Russian state company Gazprom. In addition to some ongoing investigations today, the trump card awaited by the oligarchic establishment against the Pashinyan government was obtained in November 2021. After the victory of Azerbaijan, street demonstrations broke out. The anti-Pashinyan alliance also reveals the extent of the corruption and bribery networks in the country. The Dashnaks, together with the two opposition parties, called on Pashinyan to resign on September 23, 2020, even before the Second Karabakh War broke out. In the background of the call of the EDF, which started to prepare for action against the government, there were allegations of bribery and detention against their ally, oligarch Gagik Tsarukyan. Following the signing of the ceasefire agreement, senior members of the EDF, who continued to protest, were detained on 12 November. Ara Vardanyan, the former manager of the Hayastan Pan-Armenian Fund, which manages the financial aid flowing from the diaspora to the Armenian state, said that “Kocharyan is the only alternative to Pashinyan”. Kocharyan’s Hayastan alliance called for street actions against Pashinyan on October 22, 2021, despite the early election defeat. “We think we are on the way to a surrender agreement,” said Sağatelian, referring to the peace negotiations with Azerbaijan and the normalization policy with Turkey. The Dashnaks act as the spokesperson of the Hayastan alliance, which acts under the leadership of Kocharian. They called on the Pashinyan Government to stay away from the efforts to determine the Azerbaijan-Armenia border (via Karabakh) and demanded that the negotiations be abandoned. On behalf of Hayastan, Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev requested an extraordinary session of the Parliament against the historic meeting in Brussels on 15 December.      Sağatelian is one of the most frequently voicing the “Turkification of Armenia” thesis. He calls the agreements signed or likely to be signed with Azerbaijan as “treason”. On 8-10 November, Sağatelyan called the opponents of Pashinyan to the streets of Yerevan through social media and the press, and said, “The process of national resistance has begun. Resistance has two sides, internal and external. The external front will show the world and the enemy [Azerbaijan and Turkey] that Nikol [sic] is not the national representative of the Armenian people. Anti-Armenian documents signed by this government will be rejected. On the domestic front, we must resist all phenomena that destroy our state.” The Dashnak leader, while criticizing the conditions of the normalization process declared by Armenia and Turkey, says that there is a “secret agreement” between the “evil government” [Pashinyan’s government] and Turkey and that “Turkey’s 100-year-old project [against the Armenians] will come to life”. The EDF says that the main goal of the “national resistance” is to “prevent the fall of Armenian power in Nagorno-Karabakh, new concessions [to Ankara and Baku] and the Turkification of Armenia”.      Meeting with Pashinyan on October 1, 2021, the Dashnak members asked the Prime Minister to “prevent the evacuations from Stepanakert [Hankendi], to join forces for a possible war in the future, and to enter into effective negotiations with Russia.” The rest of the Hayastan alliance simultaneously and ironically criticizes Pashinyan’s calls for peace, saying that they are insufficient to achieve peace.      The Armenian Youth Resistance, affiliated with the EDF, organizes marches, broadcasts and organizes resistance against Pashinyan and the “Turkification of Armenia” project in North America and Europe. The youth organization of the Dashnaks (Armenian Youth Federation), which has been widely listened to in the diaspora, also called on Pashinyan to resign on November 9, 2021. While these statements, which are examples of conspiracy and far-right politics, aim to mobilize the masses at the discursive level, they also raise the question of how successful the Dashnak Party is in general       According to the opinion study published by the Washington-based International Republican Institute (IRI) in May 2021, 57.6% of the Armenian people were against the government’s resignation, while 64% had positive opinions about Pashinyan’s administration of the country and the war. While 43% of the respondents thought that the country was going in a good direction, they were also feeling hopeless for reasons related to the economy. On the other hand, only 2% of the participants said that the biggest problem of Armenia is the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. Even in November 2020, right after the heavy defeat, Pashinyan was supported by 30% of the people. Even if Pashinyan is not preferred by the people, it is certain that his rivals are much less favored than him.     Despite Pashinyan’s heavy defeat, the fact that she did not lose her legitimacy pushed the “Karabakh clan” to extremist extremes and showed that the Armenian society was tired of the warrior-revanchist rhetoric     The Pashinyan government, which embraced populism and extreme nationalism, could not think rationally before and during the war. One of the main reasons for the defeat of the Armenian army was the army’s inability to meet the demands of political and military decision makers who were unaware of its capabilities and technical equipment. On the other hand, the anti-Pashinyan alliance is falling into the same trap today.     

Result

The alliance between the “Karabakh clan” and the Dashnak Party ruled Armenia from the 1990s to 2018. While the governments of Koçaryan and Sarkisyan made corruption prevail in the country with oligarchic networks, they exploited the resources of the Armenian community. EDF is an important branch of this alliance with its ultra-nationalist-racist discourse and organizational structure that has been going on for decades. However, this structure was shaken by the “Velvet Revolution” in 2018, and the new Prime Minister Pashinyan and his government directly targeted these groups. Trying to increase his legitimacy and consolidate his power in the country, Pashinyan turned to populist nationalism, leading to insolvency and conflict in the Karabakh issue, but adopted a peaceful and conciliatory policy as a result of the heavy defeat. Although it continued to maintain its legitimacy in the eyes of the Armenian community after the war, it is under heavy attack by the “Karabakh clan” and the Dashnak alliance. This alliance, which took action against the ongoing negotiations with Azerbaijan and Turkey, declared a new “national resistance”.The “Karabakh clan” and the Dashnaks, who could not make good use of the country’s capacity and aimed to re-establish their own power and maintain the relations of interest they had previously established, presented their personal interests as national interests at a turn that could bring peace and prosperity to Armenia and the South Caucasus, which were struggling with economic difficulties and closed to the world. They are trying to leave the negotiations on the Ankara, Baku and Yerevan lines inconclusive. 

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