Saturday, October 18 2014

Many experts and politicians in Armenia tend to think
that the Armenian President’s Eurasian choice comes from the support he
personally enjoys from the Kremlin...

 

I don't think that serious external actors are really
interested in the domestic political life of Armenia. The positioning of
Armenia in external world is determined by quite another ideas and factors. The
decision about Armenia's joining Eurasian Economic Union was adopted not on 10
October 2014 but on 3 September 2013. And not only Serzh Sargsyan would adopt
such a decision but any other president of Armenia too, even the most legitimate
and democratically elected one. He simply had no other choice. Karabakh,
security, Turkey, Turkey's membership in NATO, geographical location between
Iran and Georgia - all these geo-political factors affect the decisions adopted
by Armenia irrespective of the figure of the president. And Levon Ter-Petrosyan
directly said about it at the latest rally. Ter-Petrosyan's government may be
blames for many sins but not for being a pro-Russian one, as all the members of
his team were pro-Western.

 

But they still signed an agreement on a Russian
military base in Armenia...

 

There was a war in Karabakh and it was dictating the
keen necessity of having good relations with Russia. Our neighbor Georgia used
to act in another way for two times: during tenure of Gamsakhurdia and
Saakashvili. And both times Georgia was ruined. Just for this reason, the
external positioning of Armenia is explained by the most rational choice. And
the Armenian elite will go on cooperating with Europe within the frames of the
permitted corridor of opportunities. This is complementarity within the frames
of the available opportunities. Before 3 September the corridor of
opportunities of Armenia was different. It had two red lines. The first - the
line of security provided by Russia and the second - the line of management,
certain models of development, investment climate provided by Europe, as there
are not such models in Kazakhstan or Russia. And Armenia is located between
these two red lines and has been trying to exist through taking something from
both sides. "The treaty on readmission, simplified visa regime with the EU
was signed after 3 September and Serzh Sargsyan visited Wales and made a speech
at UN General Assembly after 3 September. So, politics is an art of possible
and today Armenia has been existing just within these frames.

 

On Oct 13 the Russian and Azeri DMs signed a plan of
action for 2014-2015. Under this plan in 2014 alone Russia is going to supply
Azerbaijan with arms worth $1bln. What is the aim of this game?

 

With its current game Russia pursues maintenance of
the status quo in the South Caucasus. Peace and war are the two things Russia
does not need in the South Caucasus. The Kremlin's motivation is the same for
both the cases i.e. Russia will lose its influence with the conflict's
resolution in favor of either party. Armenia will no longer need so much
security in case of either hypothetical recognition or hypothetical invasion of
NKR by Azerbaijan. Consequently, Russia's behavior in the region is rather
rational, and the bitterness that has flooded the Armenian press has nothing in
common with the real state of affairs. Arms are not supplied in the one
direction only. I know how much is 'every piece of iron'. At the military
parade timed to the 20th independence anniversary of Armenia, I was watching
how 'several military budgets' of Azerbaijan 'passed by me' within some 15
minutes. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan buys all this iron for oil dollars. Wherefrom
did Armenia obtain all that? We have no such money. Who, if not Russia, supply
the Armenian and Karabakh armies with weapons? The balance between Armenia and
Azerbaijan is kept at a level that impedes resumption of war.

 

The August clashes on the border, when Azerbaijan
suffered 9 times as many casualties as Armenia, shows that the balance and the
status-quo are maintained not only with 'iron' but also with servicemen who
guard the two Armenian states against the enemy...

 

Nevertheless, there was an extraordinary case in
August that put a plummet on the scales of the existing multi-layer
balance.  Has anyone calculated how many
billions does the echeloned line of defense on the eastern border of NKR and
the anti-aircraft systems cost? I suppose, the NKR and Armenian budgets could
hardly afford such amount of sum. The defense line, tanks, arms supply, and
training of officers - all this fits into Russia's policy pursuing maintenance
of the status quo. The motivation for sale of weapons to Azerbaijan is the
same. Neither them, nor us could avoid that.

 

The exceptions in the 160-page agreement on Armenia’s
accession to the Eurasian Economic Union will be valid for just four-eight
years. It seems that our authorities just seek to delay the collapse of our
import-oriented economy and don’t care for longer-term future...

 

Today we see pressure imposed upon Armenia, its
negative and positive sides, and finally, an attempt of Armenia to take today
the positive sides of joining EEU, and to put the negative ones far away.
Actually, the strategy of our authorities allows to delay negative scenarios
and develop the positive ones.  Since
September 2013 they have been negotiating just on this topic. Eurasian Economic
Union was initiated as a project targeted at Ukraine, and Armenia did not
contain and will not contain any economic interest for the EEU. However, under
Nazarbayev's influence, the political part dashed out from the treaty. At the
same time, I don’t agree to the viewpoint, according to which EEU was a
political project from the very beginning. It was both the political and economic
project. In April of the current year Russia president's adviser, Sergey
Glazyev, said that the general direction of the EEU is an aspiration to
synchronize  this union with the EU
through harmonizing of the customs taxes and rates. But the Ukrainian crisis
broke all the prospects of this harmonization. However, the crisis cannot last
forever, and will end.

 

 

 

You mean you don’t agree with the opinion that the EEU
was initially a political project...

 

From the very beginning the EEU had a serious economic
component. In the economic sense, the unification of Kazakhstan and Russia is
rather rational taking into account their equality: oil, gas, metals, big
territory, small population. But certain communication problems caused the
necessity of protection of their own market. As for Ukraine and Belarus, they
were, first of all, interesting from the point of view of their transit
significance. But final refusal of Ukraine to take part in this project has
changed it much and EEU has been transformed into a political project. I
wonder, what will happen to Kyrgyzstan, if it will be extended at the expense
of Tajikistan.  So, today it is not clear
in what format EEU will exist in 4 and even 8 years.

 

Ukraine has made seen the defects of Russia’s policy
in the post-Soviet area. Can a similar scenario be realized in Armenia
considering the Kremlin’s reluctance to deal with both authorities and civil
society in the country?

 

The Ukrainian scenario is unlikely to reoccur in
Armenia in the foreseeable future even given the flaws of the Russian policy in
the post-Soviet area with regard to Armenia and Moscow's reluctance to work
with not only the authorities but also the civil society. Ukraine and Armenia
are very different. Having studied the biographies of those killed in Maidan, I
found out that nearly 80% of them were natives of West Ukrainian villages.
Ukraine has a multimillion strong reservoir of a priori pro-Western sentiments.
The young Western Ukraine has a higher birthrate; they are Catholics and,
therefore, more radical. Their religious and cultural orientation is different.
It was this reservoir that played the role of Bickford fuse in Maidan, Ukraine.
Armenia lacks all this. There is some human material focused in the social
center of Yerevan: youth, students, intellectuals, etc. However, all these
people's thinking meets their social position rather the ethnic and religious
factor. Moreover, Armenia has no region that is ready to stand up for a pro-
Western position. And finally, Russia cannot be a "soft power". The
Russian language consists of energy, security, strategy, geopolitics. As for
the West, it can work with "soft power" and it demonstrated that in
Ukraine. This reality can be changed, but it will need decades and people born
in the pro-Western society. Nevertheless, the change of Armenia's foreign
political stand will become possible only when cynical politicians see a real
change in the geopolitical situation. 
"Politicians like nobody. They just look at the degree of
possibility. Armenia was unambiguously pro-Russian before 1994 not because
Levon Ter- Petrosyan, Vazgen Manukyan, Ashot Manucharyan and Vano Siradeghyan
liked birches but because Armenia was at war and needed weapons at that time.
Russia perfectly understood and understands this and develops relations with
Azerbaijan.