Yerevan /Mediamax/. Senior fellow at Carnegie Europe, expert on Caucasus Thomas de Waal writes that "Despite big promises in 2018, Pashinyan’s domestic record is still quite patchy” yet he is still "a revolutionary in foreign policy matters.”

“He has gone out on a limb to advance the normalization of relations with Turkey, despite Ankara’s support for Azerbaijan in the 2020 war.

Not much is expected to happen before Turkey’s big elections in the summer, but when that is over, the prospects look good. If the opposition manages to win the election in Turkey there is a good chance that they will press ahead with normalization with Armenia as being in the country’s state interest and will be less inclined to allow Azerbaijan to exercise a veto. That would be a vindication for Pashinyan’s strategy.

But much of what happens is out of Armenia’s hands and depends on decisions taken by Azerbaijan, Russia, and Turkey-Azerbaijan. The single most important thing that would help relieve Armenia’s insecurity and overdependence on Russia would be Azerbaijan easing the pressure and moving to a language of cooperation.

President Aliyev’s reluctance to turn the page has a lot more to do with the past than the present. The decisions he makes in the next few months will be highly consequential,” Thomas de Waal writes in “Armenia’s Year of Insecurity” article.