Since 1996 the efforts of the Armenian government have been mainly targeted at keeping stability in the country. The presidents have been spending their energy on proving their legitimacy and weakening the inner tension. Definitely this is the reason why the foreign policy of Armenia has been fragmental, and even some analysts say that such policy did not exist at all. The existing situation is resulted from this fact. The policy of not making decisions independently and risk of taking initiatives freely has faced Armenia with a serious problem. What can we do? Should we recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia or just show that these changes in the region have brought only small inconveniences in Armenia? It is more than three weeks that our society is waiting for the speech of the president concerning our approach, the difficulties that may arise and the possible solutions. However the president does not directly speak out his approaches and makes some announcements in other societies, as a result of which his speech is melting away soon after being spoken. In consideration of the hard regional situation it was expected that the president would make a speech addressed to the citizens.
The main clave of Serzh Sargsyan’s speech was the unity of people. As he said, unity is needed to go out of the difficult situation in the Caucasus. However he forgot to say for which purpose the society should unite. Specifically he forgot to say that the authorities don’t support the process of uniting people with their activities. There are a number of politicians in cells and the government has failed to release them in order to demonstrate that they are making a step toward the society to unite it. By the way, they also ignore the negative attitude of the PACE. Besides that the president should have told people about the sequence of steps and plan how to unite people and meet the challenges to go out of this situation with minimal losses.
Despite the fact that the conflict of South Ossetia happened recently the tension in the region has been existing for more than two years. Since Armenia has been in blockade 70% of the foreign trade capacity of Armenia has been done through Georgia. Armenia is not like Ukraine for Georgia. The relations with Georgia have never been clearly friendly and the cargo transportation through Georgia has never been guaranteed and safe. Due to the policy of Georgia there are also problems with the Armenian community of Georgia and they are almost forgetting the Armenian language. In other words it was clear that tension in the relations between Russia and Georgia would bring new problems for Armenia.
Have the Armenian government or national security services tried to solve this problem or find alternative ways of transportation? Definitely no.
The risk of economic and political crisis should make Armenia speak to its neighbors in a higher voice. Yes, it is true that the cargo transportations are coming through the territory of Georgia, but Georgia is not doing a favor to us and we are doing it based on contracts and payments. In a word, we should not be afraid of talking to Georgia in the language we want. Likewise Armenia could show the provisions in the intergovernmental agreement with Russia to the Russian government and demand from them not to affect the transportations to/from Armenia.
However Armenia is a predictable and loyal country for Russia and they can easily relate to it as to their outpost.
And now whether the decision of the Armenian government to recognize South Ossetia or not is more a moral decision than political.
Anyway, we wander whether the government will be able to overcome this complex or their victory in small inner political battles can satisfy their wishes.