The Russian-Armenian relations are not military cooperation, but the relations are more like accountability to Russia on the part of Armenia. It is the fault of the current authorities, which have sacrificed the independence of our state to develop their own interests. This is what member of the “Justice” alliance, leader of ADP, Aram G. Sargsyan said at the “Pastark” club. He also said that the “complementary” foreign policy course is nonsense.
Should we get used to this situation or what? Mr. Sargsyan says that we shouldn’t. The ADP leader says that we should change the government and get back our independence by making institutional changes. We wonder whether in these conditions Russia will not back the existing authorities during the upcoming elections since it has its interests via these rules that allow them to do what they want to do. “The situation was almost the same before too, but anyway things are different now. When they look for partners in politics they are interested in finding someone that can do what they want. Nevertheless, when they see that their partner is trying to do something else parallel to doing what they want, they get more interested in another candidate that would fully do their wish, but not do it partially and have other interests as well” said the NA deputy. Besides that, the latter said that the geopolitical factors are changing fast and now “they don’t need these people any more, but rather other partners, who would be straighter and would protect both their interests and the interests of everyone as a whole”. The MP said that Russia was already looking for such possible candidates. The deputy spoke about the process of alienating state companies as well and noted that he thought the authorities were either foolish or corrupted, since the mentioned companies were sold for very small sums, but were much profitable. As an example the deputy spoke about “Armentel” company and “Yerevan Brandy Factory”. The deputy says that Armenia is currently alienating even its banking system. He assures that now over 20-22% of apartments in Armenia belong to foreigners. “This is a huge number. That is the reason why we warned that if the border with Turkey were opened without any preconditions, we would lose our banking system” said Aram G. Sargsyan concerning those people who say that we should leave everything aside, including the issue of the Genocide, and do our best to open the border and develop relations with Turkey so that “Armenia can succeed”. Concerning this viewpoint the deputy asked, “Does Turkey want Armenia to succeed?” We wonder whether the ADP leader thinks that our strategic partner, Russia, wants us to succeed. It turns out that it does since it doesn’t need weak partners. “If it were ten years ago, they might not want that. Now both the maps, processes and procedures are changing in geopolitics. Now they need to have stronger partners”, said Mr. Sargsyan and added, “In a word, it doesn’t depend on how much Armenia may develop, it is the same, it will not grow to Russia’s level thus they are not afraid of anything. Furthermore, they should be glad to see Armenia developing”. The deputy brought examples as well: “The problem is the issue of whether Armenia was right to give almost 80-90% of the domestic energetic system to another country. I said that we shouldn’t have done that, however, the energetic system is working effectively. However, the fact is that we could do that ourselves too”. Note: Mr. Sargsyan has said that Russia would do its best to operate the Armenian companies given in exchange for the debt. The deputy says that when speaking about NATO first of all we should think about the Armenians working in Russia and keeping their families in Armenia (almost one million). “On the other hand, if we are able to solve their problems and provide security for them, it is another issue” said Aram G. Sargsyan.