Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's recent statements should be assessed as a historic turning point for both Caucasian peace and the strategic discourse Armenia has maintained for years. His language today, unlike in the past, when it built many of his election campaigns on the narrative of "historic Armenia," represents a critical threshold for both Yerevan’s foreign policy and regional peace processes.

"They say we lost land. How was that land ours? Did we build a school there, a kindergarten, a factory? Did we live there, create a settlement? It was not ours," Pashinyan said, which can be seen as a significant departure from the view that national interest in Armenia had become nearly an existential matter and a constitutional mission.

In this context, decoding the transformation in his discourse requires a detailed examination not only of today's significant developments but also of the history of Pashinyan's rhetoric.

'Historic Armenia' narrative

Just one year before the Second Karabakh War, Pashinyan visited Karabakh, which was occupied by Armenia during the First Karabakh War and recognized under international law as Azerbaijani territory and uttered provocative words: "Artsakh is Armenia, and that’s it.”

This rhetoric was the culmination of a state ideology that Armenia had constructed since its independence, a doctrine built on hostility toward its neighbors rather than regional integration. However, decades of this antagonistic stance yielded nothing but economic stagnation and deepened Armenia's regional isolation.

It is crucial to remember that while the United Nations General Assembly and the vast majority of the international community recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as an integral part of Azerbaijan, Armenia maintained a de facto occupation. Consequently, when Armenia lost the Second Karabakh War, it did not lose its own sovereign territory; it was forced to retreat from lands it had no legal claim to.

Even at that time, Grigor Atanesian, one of the Armenian analysts of the period, openly stated that this strategy would not suffice to establish superiority over Baku.

On the other hand, Pashinyan's contradictory stance during his discussion-format meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 15, 2020, laid bare just how detached his rhetoric from a year prior was.

In that meeting, Pashinyan was forced to rely on virtually unwritten legends while defending the "historic Armenia" claim. In contrast, Aliyev's strong arguments, grounded in international law and diplomacy, became a clear reflection of the profound asymmetry between the two sides.

However, the primary reason for Pashinyan's retreat from this surreal discourse is, without doubt, the defeat in the Second Karabakh War, which served as an awakening from a long-standing national dream.

The Azerbaijani army, strengthened by Türkiye's military and diplomatic support, not only reclaimed its territories that had been under Armenian occupation for nearly 30 years in 44 days. Armenia's strategy of spreading the war in Karabakh to Ganja and Baku to draw Russia into the conflict within the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) framework came to nothing, thanks to the Turkish-Azerbaijani diplomatic solidarity and consultation mechanism.

Following this process, which can be described as a triumph of coercive diplomacy, Pashinyan went through a politically difficult period, yet he ignited a 180-degree transformation in the discourse.

One of the first concrete signs of this transformation was his formal renunciation of the "historic Armenia" narrative. In May 2024, Pashinyan made an unexpected move, calling on Armenians to abandon the goal of re-establishing "historic Armenia," and furthermore characterizing the defeat against Azerbaijan as "the path to the real Armenia."

Approximately two years later, the words Pashinyan addressed to Armenian citizens at a rally last week embody both a significant act of self-criticism on behalf of his country and steps taken at a critical juncture for regional peace.

Today, Pashinyan stands as the first Armenian leader forced to confront these geopolitical realities. By moving away from an aggressive discourse spanning generations, he has the potential to pivot Armenia, perhaps for the first time, toward a pragmatist and realistic axis that prioritizes survival and diplomacy over expansionist myths.

Palmerstonian approach

While some view Pashinyan’s shift as a mere tactical change, it actually signals a historic transition toward a "New Caucasus." This evolution from hostility to a realist axis represents more than just rhetoric; it is a strategic window of opportunity for lasting regional stability. By grounding policy in pragmatic interests rather than old myths, this new direction offers a genuine glimmer of hope for a sustainable peace and economic cooperation that can finally unlock the South Caucasus's full potential.

As Lord Palmerston, who served twice as prime minister of the United Kingdom during the Victorian era, said, "We have no permanent friends or eternal enemies, we have only permanent interests.” These words remain among the clearest expressions of the enduring validity of realpolitik.

For Armenian foreign policy, which has swung like a pendulum between Russia's imperial interests and the reality-detached claims of the Armenian diaspora, may have come to realize that it can only emerge from its economic, political and social turbulence by abandoning its baseless narratives.

Given Armenia’s modest $20 billion gross domestic product (GDP), its heavy reliance on $3 billion in annual remittances and the "geographical disadvantage tax" that hampers its trade, the region’s vast potential in energy and trade routes offers a critical turning point.

The strategic investments made by Azerbaijan and Türkiye serve as a foundation for peace diplomacy and regional stability, offering Armenia a way to break its isolation. By integrating into the Zangezur Corridor, Armenia can transition from a closed economy with limited foreign investment, currently just $400 million compared to Azerbaijan’s fivefold higher inflows, to a vital hub within the Middle Corridor.

This integration would not only slash logistics costs for its copper and molybdenum exports but also transform its narrow industrial base into a competitive player in the global supply chain, turning a history of lost opportunities into a future of sustainable growth.

Relations with Türkiye, Azerbaijan

As neoclassical realism, conceptualized by Gideon Rose, reasonably argues, conducting foreign policy analysis in isolation from international developments leads to a deeply incomplete interpretation. Recent international developments put the final touch on this awakening. The representation of Türkiye at the 8th European Political Community (EPC) on May 4-5 by Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz may also have influenced Pashinyan’s recent statements.

Armenia's hostile foreign policy toward its neighbors, Azerbaijan and Türkiye, maintained for years, has yielded no gain beyond serving the interests of extra-regional actors such as Russia and France. The statements he made immediately following the summit indicate that Armenia's escape from its current impasse runs through building healthy neighborly relations with Baku and Ankara.

In this context, the next expected step from Pashinyan, who appears to have adopted a Palmerstonian pragmatism, will be to confront the construct of the so-called Armenian genocide narrative.