Reasons of the US carelessness

19/10/2009 Arman NAVASARDYAN

The “Armenian and Karabakh topics” being one of the formed vectors of the Washington’s south-Caucasus policy, never become the epicenter of attention of the US media. Neither does the presence of the Armenian electorate (about 1 million) in the melting-pot of the country conduce to focusing the attention of the Americans to our interests. That is the reason why the diplomatic “performance” demonstrated in Zurich and showed by almost all the US media agencies, is an exclusive phenomenon for us. The reason for that is that America purely has its interests in the south Caucasus or maybe that the US and Russia are trying to clean up the last “spot” remaining ever since the Cold War. Thus, they are trying to raise the issue of Armenia-Turkey border. The interest of the US in this issue is also mostly linked to the fact that Obama’s administration considers it a matter of dignity and virtue. And personally for Hillary Clinton the establishment of Armenian-Turkish diplomatic relations has become one of the main tests as the head of the State Department. She passed the test perfectly, which is quite appreciated as besides everything else she is a woman. Even the opponents of the administration, the republicans, cannot help accepting the successful debut of the White House in Switzerland. Due to this optimistic wave, Clinton arrived in Moscow and made promising statements by saying that hence the Russian-American relations will proceed in the direction of normalization. She also tried to arrange the sharp angles regarding the dialog with Iran; she avoided speaking about the annexation of the Georgian lands. She also expressed the new standpoint of the DC, according to which “the US agrees that Russia is independent to make its own decisions regarding democracy.” Does this mean that actually the ice is being melted between DC and Moscow? Time will show this. The opponents of the regime do not share the same thrilling notes of the ruling party. And the New York Times warns that Russia contradicts the US policy to apply sanctions in relations to Iran. The thing is that several days ago Lavrov made a statement, by which he said that if need Russia and the US may jointly apply sanctions against Tehran. Nevertheless, let us not forget that during the meeting they discussed the situation in the south Caucasus. They touched upon the Armenia-Turkey relations. And most importantly, both Moscow and DC are interested in the normalization of relations. This is already a chance and a random phenomenon. And if the dominant of the Armenian diplomacy is to really set normal relations with Turkey then we should try to benefit from the current situation. There may not be a second chance. We already mentioned that the Zurich night was most thoroughly aired by the US media outlets but then this noise gradually faded out. And the last accord was Serzh Sargsyan’s visit to Turkey. Indeed, less attention was paid to the visit than the signing of the protocols. They are saying that Sargsyan’s presence in the soccer match was the first test of the application of the signed protocols. They are also adverting to the possible tension of Turkish-Azerbaijani relations. They are surprised about the match taken place in Bursa, where during the genocide 80 thousand Armenians were slaughtered. But the perfunctory analysis of the US media outlets proves that the official Washington is a supporter of normalization of Turkey-Armenia relations. This motive will probably continue in the near future as well.

New York