Several months ago the Legal State party announces that after Artur Baghdasaryan’s visit to the United Kingdom he was appointed co-chairman of the Caucasian and Caspian Committee. As it’s well-known that such announcements of Baghdasaryan are full of bluff this information was also accepted quite humorously.
In fact this process had a more serious and hidden context. Recently it was announced that the Committee has summoned its first session in participation of both Baghdasaryan and other members of the Committee. According to the information of the Legal State website, the board of the Committee includes the Foreign Minister of Slovenia, Dmitry Rupel, Artur Baghdasaryan and professor of Ankara economic university, Mustafa Aydin. Who stand behind this mysterious Committee in fact? According to Baghdasaryan it’s the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of UK, which now implements a project, which reminds of notorious committee on Turkish-Armenian peace resolution. However the mission of Baghdasaryan’s Committee is aimed at solving simultaneously two issues – resolve the regional issues and and provide the transit function of Trans-Caucasus. According to the sources close to British representation in Armenia, this initiative was launched by the department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of UK, which is financed by lobbying groups of oil producers. The coordinator of this project is the consultant Svante Kornel, whose father Erik Kornel, used to be the Ambassador of Sweden to Ankara many years. Also, Erik Kornel is the chairman of the Cornell Caspian Consulting. He’s also serving as an assistant to the foreign affairs of the mason organization, named Grand Lodge of Sweden. Svante Cornel himself received his education in the Middle East technical school, which is famous of its anti-Armenia advocacy campaign. Svante Kornel is very interested in Karabagh conflict. Kornel, whose attitudes are quite pro-Azerbaijani, used to direct the Caspian Consulting, which encouraged oil investments in Azerbaijan (<http://www.cornellcaspian.com/>). As informed my sources close to Artur Baghdasaryan’s Legal State Party the responsible employees of communications with the UK Foreign Ministry and the mentioned Committee are Samvel Farmanyan (who studied in Upsala University under Kornel’s direct control) and Tigran Mkrtchyan (who used to study in a British University). Turkish professor Aydin also has British education. He’s also connected with circles, protecting British interests worldwide. Thus, the Turkish initiative this time is served with Slovenian sauce and with British packing. Also, the same sources mention that because of this kind of policy and including these mysterious young party members in the proportional list of the Legal State the core Legal State members are gradually leaving the party. It’s also worth mentioning that after the session of the Committee Baghdasaryan left for the United States to present his approaches about the Committee to the Strategic and International Research Center. Also Baghdasaryan made a speech in that same Center on August 31, 2005 and protected the foreign policy of the RA government. He announced that Karabagh conflict resolution is very close and that Turkey must not become an EU member. Nevertheless, during his US speech Baghdasaryan with his poor English wasn’t able to convince the audience that the main reason why he deflected from the coalition was not inner but foreign policy contradictions. In fact he wouldn’t be able to give a favorable answer to this question because on August 31, 2005 his attitude to the incumbent government of Armenia was much more moderate. At that time he was saying that democracy is built by laws and that Armenia is a supporter of rule of law by conducting a Constitutional Referendum.
To be continued