By Vicken Sosikian
The chairman of the European Council, Charles Michel, has become the de-facto broker of a peace deal between Azerbaijan and Armenia following the brutal 44 day war Azerbaijan waged against Armenia for Artsakh in the fall of 2020.
However, as Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan bulldozes ahead with massive concessions that a vast majority of his citizens disapprove of, questions arise casting doubt on Michel’s intentions and whether he is intentionally brokering a broken deal.
A leading opposition force in the Pashinyan controlled National Assembly of Armenia, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, released a statement Monday announcing that agreements reached with the present premises are null and void under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.
Michel has thus far advanced the peace talks to its current point, where Pashinyan has agreed to recognize the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan inclusive of the Republic of Artsakh. However, present day Azerbaijan is a successor state to the pre-soviet independent Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan, which did not include the territories of present day Artsakh (AKA Nagorno Karabakh).
Furthermore, Pashinyan faces serious legal challenges to his negotiations at home where concessions of land, specifically acknowledgement of the territories of Artsakh within Azerbaijan, directly violate the Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Armenia, the Constitution, as well as the 1992 Resolution of the Supreme Council of Armenia. This all leads to the question – why is Charles MICHEL brokering an apparently broken deal, which in addition to the aforementioned, also violates the right to self determination for the people of Artsakh?
