‘Peace’ Under Pressure: Christian Armenia Faces a Strategic Trap

Critics warn that far from ending war, the Armenia-Azerbaijan deal entrenches instability and undermines Armenian sovereignty.

Nearly two months after its announcement on March 13, a new peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan continues to prompt enthusiastic reactions in several Western capitals. After four decades of war and diplomatic stalemate, many observers have welcomed what they see as a historic breakthrough.

But critics argue that it is not a peace agreement between equals and that it may, in fact, seal Armenia’s long-term subjugation. Among them is French-Swiss geopolitical expert Tigrane Yégavian, of Armenian origin and a longtime observer of the country’s affairs, who maintains that such celebrations are dangerously naive.

A professor at Schiller International University and member of the editorial board of the geopolitics magazine Conflits, Yégavian has dedicated several publications to Armenia, including Géopolitique de l’Arménie, Haut-Karabagh: Le livre noir (“The Black Book”) and, in English, Diasporalogue.

“What Azerbaijan wants is a humiliation peace that would entail a mere rewriting of history,” he warned in an interview with the Register, claiming that conventional war is now being replaced by psychological warfare.

The two Caucasus neighbors first went to war in 1994, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, after the Nagorno-Karabakh region, populated mostly by ethnic Armenians, declared its independence from Azerbaijan and announced its desire to join Armenia. In 2020, Azerbaijan launched a full-scale offensive to retake control of the predominantly Armenian enclave, resulting in more than 7,000 deaths and the displacement of tens of thousands of Armenians. A fragile ceasefire brokered by Russia left a shattered Armenian population under siege.

In September 2023, after a swift military offensive, Azerbaijan seized full control of the enclave, triggering the exodus of around 120,000 Armenians in less than a week — a mass displacement that many observers described as ethnic cleansing.

A Peace Treaty Signed at Knifepoint

For Yégavian, the current negotiations are not born of goodwill or mutual compromise. “The Armenians have a knife to their throat,” he claimed. He described a process driven by asymmetry, in which the weaker side is forced to concede ever more while international actors applaud a fragile illusion of reconciliation.

The full text of the peace agreement has not been made public. However, details that have emerged through public statements mention Armenia’s renunciation of territorial claims, a ban on third-country forces along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, and the dropping of war-crimes charges in international courts.

Among the most controversial conditions is Azerbaijan’s reported demand that Armenia amend its own constitution to erase references to Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has indicated he intends to comply — a move that has already sparked outrage within the country, particularly among the political opposition.

“That’s an unprecedented demand. No sovereign country has ever been asked to revise its fundamental law as a prerequisite for peace,” Yégavian commented. He sees it as a forced rewriting of national identity under duress.

He also sees a familiar tactic at play: the so-called “salami strategy.”

“It’s like what Hungary experienced under Soviet control,” he noted. “You don’t swallow the country all at once — you cut it into slices.” In his view, the current agreement represents only the latest slice in a long-term strategy aimed at hollowing out Armenian sovereignty through incremental pressure, while exacerbating internal divisions along the way.

In this downward spiral, Armenia — abandoned by Russia, its historic protector — finds little support from the West, which, Yégavian argues, bears part of the responsibility for the current situation.

“The EU turned a blind eye to ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh because Azerbaijan is a key energy partner,” he said, referring to the fallout from the Russian-Ukrainian war and Europe’s urgent need to replace Russian gas supplies.

He also points to the support Azerbaijani receives from a powerful, coordinated “propaganda machine,” often described as a model of “caviar diplomacy.” 

“Azerbaijan has spent years investing in Western PR firms, think tanks, media and political movements,” he said. “It pays off today, when most Western observers fail to see the full picture.”

Meanwhile, Armenia — economically and diplomatically isolated — struggles to make its case heard on the international stage.

A Regional Chessboard With High Stakes

The wider geopolitical context, Yégavian stressed, cannot be overlooked.

“This conflict is not just about two small nations,” he said. “It involves Turkey, Iran, Russia, Israel and the U.S. all projecting their rivalries through the Caucasus.”

In this volatile environment, Azerbaijan has become a strategic partner for both Israel and the U.S. in their ongoing confrontation with Iran, Azerbaijan’s historical regional rival.

Nearly 40% of Israel’s oil comes from Azerbaijan, and Israeli weapons reportedly played a decisive role in Azerbaijan’s military victories. For Tel Aviv, Baku — Azerbaijan’s capital — serves as both a strategic partner and a forward base in its standoff with Iran.

This anti-Iran alignment — along with the U.S. and EU’s desire to curb Russia’s influence — is, he argued, taking precedence over any concern for justice or peace in the Caucasus. “It’s all about power projection. Not principles.”

For Prime Minister Pashinyan, the situation is more precarious than ever. Trapped between domestic opposition and relentless foreign pressure, he faces a bleak choice. “Either he signs a peace deal that amounts to capitulation, or he refuses and is blamed for blocking peace,” said Yégavian. “But even if he signs, the Azerbaijani war effort won’t stop.”

Recent events seem to prove him right. In a speech on March 27 in Aghdam (Nagorno-Karabakh), Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev called Armenia “a hated enemy,” comparing Armenian authority in the region over the past decades to the presence of “thieves” and “marauders.” He also pointed out that the first building to be restored was the Aghdam mosque, where he claimed Armenians had stored cattle “to insult all the Muslims in the world.”

An April 2 article by Eurasianet also warned that “Azerbaijani officials seem itching to renew hostilities.” The article reported that in recent weeks, Baku has almost daily accused Armenian forces of engaging in armed provocations in border areas. These accusations were firmly denied by Armenia, whose officials have published images purporting to show Azerbaijani fire on Armenian villages near the border.

Meanwhile, the Christian heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh remains more endangered than ever, and many displaced families from the region still live in limbo.

From this perspective, the peace agreement appears not as a way out of war but as a smokescreen to maintain it by other means.

“It’s a sophisticated form of warfare,” Yégavian concluded. “And Armenia, in its current state of weakness, is being forced to participate in its own undoing.”