Armenia, Azerbaijan and the unfinished peace

Engelsberg Ideas | Thomas de Waal

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan faces parliamentary elections on 7 June 2026, framing the vote as a mandate to normalise relations with Azerbaijan and reduce historical dependency on Russia. The upcoming election precedes a planned constitutional referendum required by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to ratify a bilateral 17-point peace agreement initialled in Washington in August.

Decades of frozen conflict ended when Azerbaijan captured Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023, forcing 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee. Defeat accelerated Yerevan's strategic pivot. Pashinyan has frozen participation in the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation while securing Western backing for the 43-km Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity railway linking Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan. In response, Moscow has deployed hybrid operations, financing opposition parties and imposing agricultural import bans against Armenia. However, ongoing military operations in Iran have delayed technical implementation of the border transit corridor. Pashinyan's aggressive campaign rhetoric toward Karabakh refugees threatens the broad consensus required to secure constitutional reform.

Comment

Armenia’s decision to freeze its participation in the Collective Security Treaty Organisation demonstrates the expanding fracture between Moscow’s mutual defence guarantees and small-state security requirements. Yerevan's pivot toward Western security mediation reflects a structural breakdown in the Russian security umbrella following the 2023 Nagorno-Karabakh campaign. By seeking security ties with the European Union and Washington while hosting Russian garrison elements, Armenia accelerates the devaluation of CSTO commitments across Eurasia.

This institutional breakdown creates significant secondary operational risks for the Collective Security Treaty Organisation's remaining Central Asian members. As Yerevan distances itself from Russian command structures, Moscow loses its primary strategic foothold south of the Greater Caucasus mountain range. This erosion weakens CSTO collective defence credibility in post-Soviet security architecture.

Strategic Question for Discussion

If Armenia permanently withdraws from the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, which structural mechanism is more likely to absorb the resulting security vacuum in the South Caucasus — European Union civilian monitoring missions or bilateral defense pacts with non-regional powers?

The trajectory indicates that bilateral defence arrangements, such as Armenia's expanding arms procurement from India and France, will prove more consequential than multilateral European Union monitoring. While European observers offer political oversight, Yerevan's immediate requirement for air defence and artillery assets makes sovereign defense diversification the primary counterweight to Russian disengagement from the CSTO.

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