World powers have recently begun to pay more attention to Armenia, EADaily writes. On Sept. 13–14, the Russian delegation led by Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk was on a working visit to the republic. On Sept. 16, French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné visited the capital of Armenia to confirm the commitment of Paris to taking over the “guardianship” of Yerevan in the defense sector.
The full agenda of Armenian-French relations is gradually expanding to the defense sector. It is noteworthy that a few days before the minister’s visit to Yerevan, the delegation of the Armenian military academy visited the French Ministry of Defense and the École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr.
The great cooperation between the two countries in the military sphere has given some experts a reason to assume that France intends to become Armenia’s “guide” to NATO. However, the Armenian authorities prefer not to talk about their hypothetical desire to join NATO, at least publicly. Another thing is that they constantly talk about the “diversification” of relations with key partners in defense and other areas.
“Armenia has turned into an arena of intense competition between world powers. Even if we assume that Nikol Pashinyan manages to make relatively successful diplomatic and military-political maneuvers in the coming years, the aforementioned “diversification” may have extremely dangerous consequences,” the news website writes.
It is noteworthy that the three leading foreign political partners of Armenia remain Russia, the U.S., and France, i.e., the three co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, involved in the Karabakh conflict settlement process until the 44-day war in 2020. Since the start of the special military operation in Ukraine, the format of the co-chairmanship has in fact disintegrated, although it has not yet been phrased in international legal terms.
