The last days of this month are going to be active because on January 27 the issue of depriving Armenia of the voting right at the PACE will be discussed, January 28 will be important for the conflict of Karabakh, and on January 29 the PACE will adopt a final resolution on Armenia.
It is clear that the issue of depriving Armenia of the voting right at the PACE and the conflict of Karabakh are connected. Such situation happened in 1999, when the inner political developments were connected with the issue of Karabakh. At that time the opposition did not cooperate with the government either and the political field was divided in two parts. As a result, we lost one step.
Currently we must not step back in the conditions of the existing regional and global changes. Now we should figure out how we can work out the crisis, especially when the processes are open. There are certain conditions, according to which Armenia may lose the voting right at the PACE. Even if Armenia is not deprived of the vote, which logically means that Armenia has to compromise in the issue of the conflict settlement, Armenia may refuse to make such compromises in the future. Failure to prevent the possibility of depriving Armenia’s voting right will be an illogical and non-effective outcome. Europe does not have any other effective partners in the region. Europe has active participation in Georgia, and it is hardly possible that Europe may wish to become closer with Georgia again after Georgia lost its reputation in August. Hardly Europe may wish to cooperate with Azerbaijan in consideration of the facts that Azerbaijan has authoritarian political regime and recently closed down a number of foreign media companies. If Armenia is deprived of the vote, Europe’s positions in Armenia will significantly suffer, which means that Europe’s presence in the region will suffer too. Furthermore, in consideration of the fact that Turkey’s legislative and other state structures are not democratic and it wants to join the EU, the negative attitude toward Europe will grow in the region and Europe’s policy will be qualified as “a policy of double standards.” As a result, Europe’s reputation in the region will fall significantly.
The relations with Europe should also be viewed in the context of the competition between Europe and Russia. If Armenia is deprived of the voting right, Russia’s influence will grow in the region, thus Russia will dominate in the issue of settling the conflict of Karabakh. During the PACE session the PACE vice-president called on to protect Armenia. Accordingly, hardly Europe may manage to deprive Armenia of the voting right as Russia’s image grew significantly in Moscow (November 2008). From this point of view, Armenia may use the moment and the fact that Europe and Russia are competing and not compromise in the issue of Karabakh.
America’s possible support to Armenia is very important too. We should not forget that the US has very strong positions in the OSCE Minsk Group, which is the only intermediate of Karabakh conflict. In order to compensate Georgia’s discrediting in August and Russia’s high image, which grew after the meetings in Moscow, obviously the US will be ready to demonstrate pro-Armenian policy. The concept of the new administration of the United States shows that in the philosophy of the administration’s foreign policy values shall be in the first place, and the economic aspect shall be in the second place, and also it shall support regional balance. The fact that Azerbaijan has closed down the above mentioned foreign media companies means that logically the US should have a better approach to Armenia. In consideration of the facts that the new president has promised the Armenian community of America to recognize the issue of the Armenian Genocide, the Armenian community has rather big expectations from him and it is very hard to do that, definitely America will at least demonstrate declarative positive policy toward Armenia.
Armenia should use this opportunity, even though such factors are connected with tactics, it will help Armenia to escape from the possibility of losing the voting right and compromise in the issue of Karabakh.
Vahan Dilanyan
President of Political Developments Research Centre