[John Steed]

My friend who’s half-Armenian moved to the UK with his parents as a child. They have a lot of relatives in Armenia who they visit. He’s there now and says that they’ll all soon have to emigrate, mostly likely to Russia. At least as a family they decided that would be best for them. This led to our first argument. Firstly, I said that moving to a country which is considered an aggressor is quite possibly the worst thing they could do. Secondly, I couldn’t understand why they were even thinking of leaving when after Nikol Pashinyan’s election everything seemed to be getting better.
Anyway, he wrote to me a few days ago and I was forced to reconsider my opinion. I have to admit that my (British) view of Russia was wrong and my view of events in Armenia was even more wrong. Of course there are issues with Russia and I’m not going to praise Putin’s politics, but rejecting Russia entirely is also stupid. Imagine the Baltic states without ports or Bulgaria without the South Stream and that’s only economic losses. Without Russia Armenia will face a lot of economic problems but the main problem is that by destroying relations with Russia Armenia will lose its sovereignty. Russia is now the main power that contains the Karabakh conflict. Without Russia the situation will favour Azerbaijan which is supported by Turkey.
I don’t think that Nikol Pashinyan can be sure that the US or Europe will rush in with peacekeepers to replace Russia. That’ll never happen and Pashinyan understands it which is why he continues to call Russia Armenia’s friend. On the other hand, he doesn’t mind criticising Russia as there are those in his circle who get money from different foundations e.g. Soros, who even wrote on Facebook that Russian military bases in Armenia should be closed because they’re not in the country’s interests and the supply of Russian weapons to Armenia should also be stopped. The people behind this page are long-time Soros employee Daniel Ioannisyan, now working in the Armenian government, and former speaker Ararat Mirzoyan (looking at different sites, he has long experience working for US interests e.g. he was the coordinator of IFES). Also involved is Karpis Pashoyan, an LGBT activist who was recently sacked for insulting Armenian soldiers killed during the April Four-Day War in Nagorno-Karabakh. By including such people in his government Pashinyan can’t hope to maintain friendly relations with Russia.
I found a quote by Pashinyan: ‘We all understand that Russia as a superpower is able to stop war in our region. I can’t believe that Russia, Armenia’s strategic partner and friend, won’t use its influence to avoid war.’ However, my Armenian friend’s family isn’t so sure. They’re concerned about war starting up again. It ’ s strange that a simple family understands what’s going on, but the president thinks that Russia will keep forgiving and forgetting despite the government doing its best tobreak off relations. This is why they decided to emigrate. People are scared and don’t wan twar. Of course they want to live in their own country and they want their country to preserve its sovereignty, but they aren’t certain that Pashinyan is the answer and they say that after his first 100 days as president the number of people who are scared is even more.

[Rich]

The only solution is to restore the Eastern part of Turkey to Armenia and throw out the Sunni Muslim occupiers. This would then give us a land bridge to support the liberation of Kurdistan from Iran, Iraq, Syria and South Turkey. While we're at it lets remove Thrace from Turkish occupation and restore Constantinople to its rightful owners.

[Decky]

Not to mention unifying Cyprus.

[ThirdTerm]

The Soviet Union had sown the seeds of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict when it encouraged an Armenian separatist movement in Soviet Azerbaijan, which resulted in the creation of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is claimed by both Azerbaijan and Azerbaijan. The disputed region was formerly called the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO), which was an autonomous region governed by the ethnic Armenians, who now control the the Republic of Artsakh as they used to do in the Soviet era. I think Azerbaijan will respect the current arrangement which allows the ethnic Armenians to self-govern without gobbling it up. Armenia needs the Russian bases to defend the country from Turkey and Armenia and Russia signed a friendship treaty in 1997, which calls for mutual assistance in the event of a military threat to either party.

Inter-ethnic clashes between the two broke out shortly after the parliament of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) in Azerbaijan voted to unify the region with Armenia on 20 February 1988. The circumstances of the dissolution of the Soviet Union facilitated an Armenian separatist movement in Soviet Azerbaijan. The declaration of secession from Azerbaijan was the final result of a territorial conflict regarding the land.[24] As Azerbaijan declared its independence from the Soviet Union and removed the powers held by the enclave's government, the Armenian majority voted to secede from Azerbaijan and in the process proclaimed the unrecognized Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh.[25]

Full-scale fighting erupted in the late winter of 1992. International mediation by several groups including the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) failed to bring an end resolution that both sides could work with. In the spring of 1993, Armenian forces captured regions outside the enclave itself, threatening the involvement of other countries in the region.[26] By the end of the war in 1994, the Armenians were in full control of most of the enclave and also held and currently control approximately 9% of Azerbaijan's territory outside the enclave.[27] As many as 230,000 Armenians from Azerbaijan and 800,000 Azerbaijanis from Armenia and Karabakh have been displaced as a result of the conflict.[28] A Russian-brokered ceasefire was signed in May 1994 and peace talks, mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group, have been held ever since by Armenia and Azerbaijan.

[Independent_Srpska]

A "British view" of many things in this world is quite skewed and generally is a cause of many troubles world wide.
UK diplomacy sucks last 20-30 years.
Brexit saved the day, at least in the Balkans.