The meeting of the RA Foreign Minister, Vartan Oskanyan with US State Secretary Condoleezza Rice almost overlapped with the release of the report of the US State Department 2006. Both events were equally important for Armenia but their comparison revealed a very interesting fact – the foreign policy of Armenia and the real issues of Armenia don’t have any connection with each other.
In this report the United States has again criticized the Armenian authorities’ human rights record as “poor,” saying that they continue to tolerate police torture, harass political opponents and restrict citizens’ constitutional right to change their government. “The government’s human rights record remained poor, and serious problems remained,” the U.S. State Department said of Armenia in its annual report scrutinizing human rights practices around the world. This part is absolutely true about Armenia. The most terrible thing is that in the human rights section of the report the US criticizes the government of Armenia for occupying the 7 regions of Karabagh. This is a complete lie approved by someone, who’s a Minsk Group co-chairman on the side of the US. What fair resolution of Karabagh conflict are we anticipating?
This report shows that Armenia has two very serious problems. Both of them are realistic. First – in Armenia human rights and freedoms are violated and elections are falsified, widespread corruption, violence within police and military, journalists are also being persecuted, etc. Second problem is that the greatest power of the world – USA, thinks that Karabagh is occupied by Armenia and that it’s a territory of Azerbaijan. Both of those problems may originate serious problems for Armenia (no reason to explain why). Thus, the Armenian government must work to solve those two problems. On one hand they must provide real democracy in Armenia, on the other hand they must adopt a constructive approach during Karabagh talks and get rid of the label “occupant”. Moreover, if the first issue is solved the second one will be easier to solve.
It seems it would be logical if Vartan Oskanian discussed those issues with Rice. But no matter how strange it is it didn’t happen (at least according to official information). The impression was that the main point of Oskanian’s visit was to discuss the Armenian Genocide Issue and neutralization of Turkish counter-influence on Armenia. So the “message” of Oskanian was that Turkey by terrorizing and preventing the free speech in its country is trying to keep the US silent as well, which must not be allowed.
Now a question is originated. How did Oskanian with this mission help the solution of the main two problems of Armenia? According to the same report the most concerning issues of Armenia’s society is the economic issue, Karabagh conflict and corruption. It’s interesting to know which of these three issues has any connection with Genocide.
And finally can a country like Armenia have success in the West (in the US) by having an undemocratic situation at home – corruption, violation of human rights and others? The problem is not that we are trying to ignore the Genocide issue. It’s all about priorities and sequence. First we need to establish democracy in our country at least once conduct free and fair election, respect the rights of own people and then ask others to respect us. There is no other way.