Armenia’s recent adoption of a law restricting diaspora members’ interference, influence, and campaigning activity in its elections is not especially surprising. What is striking, however, is how a country that for years could prolong conflict largely due to the determined efforts of diaspora organisations now intends to structure relations with its neighbours without that same diaspora activism and support. Today, Armenia extends a hand of peace toward both of its eastern and western neighbours, Azerbaijan and Türkiye, and signals readiness for cooperation. Against this backdrop, a state that for roughly a century maintained hostility toward those neighbours appears to have little remaining need for accusatory narratives or for the propaganda sustained by diaspora structures.

Following the latest elections, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s renewed mandate sends a hard message to the Armenian lobby and diaspora organisations active in Canada, the United States, Lebanon, Russia and European countries, including France. Until the last few years, the Pashinyan administration often turned a blind eye to groups abroad that attacked Azerbaijan and persistently criticised Pashinyan’s own decisions.

It should be noted that the relationship between Armenia and the Armenian diaspora has undergone significant changes in the aftermath of the Second Karabakh War, which ended in 2020. The conflict not only reshaped the political landscape of the South Caucasus but also exposed growing disagreements between Armenia’s government and influential diaspora communities abroad.

Now, diaspora activism senses that it stands on the full threshold of decline. Yet calling this a collapse is premature. When speaking of the diaspora, the relevant supporters are not the Civil Contract party or weakened opposition parties inside Armenia. The real backing and financing come from influential figures within the U.S. Congress and the French Parliament.

With that in mind, a central question emerges: Will the diaspora........

© AzerNews