Turkey will attack Iran
According to member of the Russian academy of geopolitical issues, chair of the Armenian branch, doctor of economical sciences Ara Sargsyan, a new figure has started to play its games in the region, and that figure is Turkey. “It is pity but Armenians don’t realize the danger of this. We know what Russia and the U.S. want, but we don’t know what Turkey wants. It has been more than two years that Georgia is under the cover of Turkish military reconnaissance and specialists. After the Russians left the Vazean airport, it was fully reconstructed and now it is under their control. The military basement of Gadauta is under their control as well. I am not speaking about Batumi because it was already covered by them in the period of Abashidze. Currently, Turkey is brainwashing the minds of the Georgian authorities because soon or later Georgia will join the NATO and its main basement in our region is Turkey”, says A. Sargsyan. According to him during these two years Turkey has provided military facilities to Georgia worth 750 million dollars (mainly air navigation and air protection facilities) and now there are over 2000 Turkish military specialists in Georgia. The Turkish president has given a huge sum money to Georgia with the purpose of giving hostages to the Turkish people in Javakhk. “Georgia hoped that it could use the US resources and solve the problem of Osia and Abkhazia. But the main subjects of discussion during the visit of Lavrov in the U.S. were Iran, the “HAMAS” and Southern Caucasus. This means that the US didn’t play the game of Georgia and didn’t get into a conflict with Russia because of the Georgian conflicts. And then Georgia turned to Turkey at once. Georgia needs to have a partner during the coming war”, assures A. Sargsyan. But according to him the U.S. will not give all the investment that was made in Georgia as a gift. They will ask from Georgia to allow them use the airport of Vazean because they need it to attack the Northern territory of Iran. The U.S. have to attack from the North in order to control the Northern and Eastern air space of Iran. They wanted to get this permission from Azerbaijan, but it played its own game and is still playing it. Azerbaijan made a contract with Iran in May, 2005 not to give its territories to any third country to attack Iran. By the way, Mr. Sargsyan says that Azerbaijan may give the territory of Nakhidjevan to the U.S. to attack Iran in order to gain some benefits from the U.S. According to him the reason he thinks so is the fact that recently Azerbaijan ruined all Armenian monuments there and there were many criticisms and he thinks that the U.S. forces may be located there. “I think this territory will be given to the U.S. to locate their radio location and navigation facilities there”, says A. Sargsyan.
In fact it turns out that now Georgia is in military conditions with Iran. “Let’s be more realistic: Turkey is ready to attack Iran too because the important military basements of Iran are going to be attacked from Turkey. Turkey needs to have a partner too. Of course Armenia can’t be their partner and Israel and Georgia will join them”, says A. Sargsyan. According to him new processes are starting in the region as a result of which Armenia will be targeted either by Iran or by Turkey. According to him the recent visits of the OSCE Minsk group co-chairmen and U.S. representatives to the region, as well as the visit of the Turkish president to Georgia witness the fact that now a re-grouping process is going on in the region and the U.S. is trying to make everyone understand that the countries protecting Iran will be punished. In fact all countries are waiting for the moment when the U.S. will attack Iran because in this case they will be able to get some “benefits”. Some Western and local specialists want to make people believe that the war between Iran and the U.S. will be of local character and will end in a short period. Mr. Sargsyan doesn’t agree with this and says that this war may recruit all countries and ethnic groups of the region in it and they may use nuclear weapons and it may turn to a world war because there are a lot of factors that may lead to this.
Conflict of interests
Iran and Japan have a contract of investing about 25 billion dollars with the purpose of exploiting the oil mines in the Southern territory of Iran. Currently the 80% of the imported oil in Japan comes from this region. This means that the economical interests of Japan are so big in this region that they are ready to do everything, even recognize the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan (several days ago Japan has expressed such approach) because Azerbaijan is involved in the cooperation line Iran-Azerbaijan-Japan. Even more, he assures that the Azerbaijani oil will reach Japan through the territory of Iran.
Besides that Iran has converted their capital and left the field of USD: the foreign funds of the country will be moved to the East (Iran has over 50 billion dollars from oil sale only in the banks of Eastern Europe). The Iranian officials announced during their visit to Japan that these funds will be converted into Euro and will be kept in Japanese banks because in case of war the capital activities of Iran in Europe may be frozen. By the way, Iran is not the only country that is going to affect the flows of USD with the help of Euro: a lot of Arabic countries are going to convert their funds in USD into Euro too. “According to our information it is possible that the fund of Iran and some Arabic countries may not be kept in Euro, but in other currency: either in Japanese Yen or Chinese Yuan. Now the Southern Asian countries are trying to establish their own currency. Soon or later it will happen because the capacity of the GDP of only Southern Asian countries covers about 35% in the world. Iran has announced that it is going to join the capital of Southern Asian countries. Iran announced and that is all, no more discussions. That is why the U.S. is going to punish Iran”, thinks A. Sargsyan. According to A. Sargsyan by punishing Iran the U.S. wants to keep the other Arabic countries in the field of USD, because their transformation into another currency field will affect the hegemony of the U.S. in the world. Besides that Iran has announced about founding its own oil stock market in parallel with the OPEC. This means that Iran is becoming a country that has influence on the world prices on oil. “Here the interests of Russia and the U.S. may be the same because it is not good for either of them. And this is the reason why Iran didn’t accept the suggestion of Russia to enrich uranium in their territory. They understood after the visit of Lavrov to the U.S. that Russia had agreed with America”, says A. Sargsyan. By the way, according to him Russia has also agreed with the Karabakh conflict solution option that was suggested by the U.S. government, which proposes “Azerbaijani territorial integrity”.
In other words the U.S. is going to punish Iran and Russia is going to join them. Azerbaijan has a good leverage: energetic resources. And it plays well. The Turkish military “doctrine” works very well in Georgia. “As a result of this Turkey wants to reach several goals. First, it wants to dissolve the Armenian ethnic groups in Javakhk. And it doesn’t depend on what the ARF or Georgian Church do, I am announcing this officially. Armenians are leaving that territory and Turkey is providing financial support to return turks to that territory. Tell you frankly we have some leverages in Javakhk to make pressure on Georgia. But Georgia may create artificial difficulties on the export and import in goods to our country through their territory with the help of Turkey. Who says that it will not happen? There are no brothers and friends in business and politics: there are only interests”, says A. Sargsyan. As for Europe, he thinks that now Europe makes trade with the U.S. too and they are going to make benefits from these developments too. “Why didn’t Germany, France and Russia join the U.S. when attacking Iraq? Because all they asked for their part of benefit and the U.S. didn’t agree. Now the situation is different”, says A. Sargsyan and adds that France has always had its interests in the region.
Armenia in the arena
So what should Armenia do? Should it join them like in the case of Iraq? A. Sargsyan says that we have a good chance to make a choice. “Armenia can say that it will not join either of the parties as usually the countries of the third world do. As a result of these all the parties will work well in our country: both the Iranians and Americans. This is not complementary policy when you accept the both parties, but in fact with this we will not accept either of them. No one will punish us if we don’t join either of them”, says A. Sargsyan. If there is war, Armenia will have to make a choice whether to provide territories for the US or not. According to him far in 2000 an agreement was reached in Washington to use the air space of Armenia. A. Sargsyan thinks that it is not excluded that Iran will win the war because there are seven atomic states in the world, four of which are in Asia. Besides that he also notes that the war will not be close to Washington, but close to Yerevan in 300 kilometers distance and Armenia is not secure from the part of Iran with anything.
Armenian-Turkish border?
What does the idea of Armenian-Turkish border mean in this new century of IT? A. Sargsyan assures that the four factors that describe borders exist now (goods, finance, labor, information). “Turkey doesn’t have a problem of financial flows with Armenia because the banking system works well. The only problem connected with goods is the 20-30% expenses on goods between these two countries. According to non-official information the trade capacity between Armenia and Turkey currently covers 200 million dollars, at the same time the 95% out of this mark is the import from Turkey. It is very interesting because these two countries are members of the WTO, but Turkey prohibits importing goods from Armenia. It turns out that every year Armenia invests 200 million dollars in the economy of Turkey. The air space is open too: a lot of Armenians leave for Antalya for vacation. People can move easily too and now about 30000 citizens of Armenia work in Istanbul. As for Armenia, now there are a lot of citizens of Turkey in Armenia that are occupied in culture, education and scientific works. The internet and telephone communications work too”, says A. Sargsyan. According to him by saying Armenian-Turkish border we should understand the Kars-Gyumri railway. These two countries are in normal trade relations without this railway too. A. Sargsyan remembers when the 10th military troop of Turkey was located in the territory in between Gyumri and Sharur and was going to attack Armenia; the only obstacle to attack Armenia from the Southern territory was the fact that they couldn’t transport their heavy facilities to Meghri because there was no railway. He says that Turkey is interested in opening the border more than Armenia. “Anyway Turkey is still keeping its policy of occupying Armenia. It is playing the same game of 1993 in another way. Back then it was preparing military aggression, and now in order to pressure Armenia it is working on taking Georgia under its control slowly and the geopolitical field is already under their control”, says A. Sargsyan.
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A. Sargsyan thinks that Armenia is leading wrong foreign politics. “In case of Iraq, Armenia didn’t get any benefits from protecting the aggressor. Neither the U.S. gave us the 250 million dollars they had promised nor the problem of Karabakh was solved nor was the Genocide issue brought up. The state didn’t get any political dividends, but maybe some individuals got some benefits”, says A. Sargsyan. He doesn’t agree with the people that are blaming Russia for our misfortune: “What do we do for developing our own economy? Are the Russians guilty for our own corruption and fraudulence? The Russians are selling gas to us for $110, but we are selling it to our own people for $200”. A. Sargsyan says that Armenia now needs new people to resist and counterattack the modern geopolitical problems because “it is impossible to play with this team already and it is out of Armenia’s interests”.