Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News

Problems: Old And New
by David Petrosyan
Posted: Tuesday, February 13, 2001 01:47 am CST

The reaction of the Turkish political elite to the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by France testifies to Ankara's being unprepared for the kind of development. The plan of political measures developed and adopted by the Turkish National Security Council to backpedal the process of Genocide recognition initiated by a number of Western countries is of an openly anti-Armenian character.

One of the elements of this policy is the building of a "strategic partnership" line between Ankara and Tbilisi. Supposedly, the Georgian-Turkish agreements are intended to result in Armenia's geopolitical isolation. A new stage of Armenian-Iranian rapprochement became a forced reply to Georgian-Turkish partnership and Baku's aggressive tone. The intensity of contacts between Yerevan and Tehran sharply increased after the visit of Armenia's National Security Council Secretary and Minister of Defense Serge Sargssian to Tehran last November. To recap, Iran's President Mohammad Khatami made the following statement during his meeting with Serge Sargssian: "The presence of alien forces in the region is insulting and involves dangers for the region's security and stability. Deeper relations between Armenia and Iran will enhance stability in the entire region. I hope the problem of Nagorno-Karabakh will be solved by peaceful means."

No doubt, the project of constructing a gas pipe-line between the two countries is a key element at the given stage of Armenian-Iranian cooperation. Simultaneously, it was the time that the construction of the Iran-Armenia gas pipe-line had been declared "to be of importance both in terms of economy and security." It is quite obvious that today there are all signs testifying to the sides' serious approach to the matter of gas pipe-line construction. Another major circumstance that influenced the sides' positions was that the facts of negotiations for the possible ceding of the Meghri corridor to Azerbaijan as a result of settling the crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh had been confirmed. The possibility of Armenia's receiving gas from Turkmenistan via Iranian territory was of no small account either. The same gas can be transported to Georgia via Armenian territory. All this may turn Armenia into a transit territory for the transportation of Iranian and, in a longer-term, of Turkmen gas.

However, the current boost in Armenian-Iranian cooperation cannot substitute for the Armenian-Russian union, which have gone through serious ordeals of late. The note of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the discontinued re-broadcasts of the ORT TV channel's programs in Armenia on a meter-band frequency reflects but a small part of problems accumulated in relations between the two countries. It is still unclear how they are going to "steer" between Moscow and Yerevan. Some of them are quite perplexing. Thus, Armenia's debt to Russia amounts to $118 million, of which $100 million is a basic sum and the rest is interest.

What constitutes the basic part of the debt is loans for the sums issued by Russia for the rehabilitation of the earthquake zone and for the purchase of nuclear fuel for the needs of the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant.

Still in December of 1999 (!), during the visit of the then prime minister Aram Sargssian to Moscow, certain mutual understanding was reached on this account with Russia's then prime minister Vladimir Putin, but no further progress followed. Further negotiations on the above-mentioned agreements were supposed to be held within the framework of the Armenian-Russian interstate commission on trade, economic, scientific and technical cooperation, in which the Armenian side was led by Gagik Shahbazian, who is now out of business and stays in the United States. The new chairman from the Armenian side has not been appointed yet (a year has now passed!). The date and venue for the fourth joint meeting of the commission has not been specified yet because of this circumstance.

As is known, Moscow was ready to postpone the date of Armenia's paying $70 million of its debt, thereby granting a respite to Armenia's stranded economy. Russia was also ready to re-consider the mechanisms of Armenia's repaying its debt: with money, with commodity or with shares of Armenian enterprises.

However, as a result of the delay in officially drawing up agreements, Moscow assumed a hard-line on economic concessions to Armenia for a number of reasons (among them the prevention of Russian companies from participating in the tender for the privatization of Armenia's electricity distribution networks).

In the current situation, when anti-Armenian hysteria has swept over Baku and Ankara and relations with Tbilisi are growing cooler, official Yerevan will be forced to agree to discussing a number of issues that Moscow does not care to parade (among them the situation with Arkady Vardanian). Otherwise, political transformations undesirable for Kocharian are likely to start in the spring both inside and outside of parliament, as a result of which the president will get a consolidated opposition.

"The Noyan Tapan Highlights" N5 February 7 2001

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