EurasiaNet Organization
Jan 21 2005
ARMENIAN TROOPS DEPLOY TO IRAQ
Samvel Martirosyan 1/21/05
Despite widespread popular opposition, Armenia has dispatched troops
to Iraq on a humanitarian mission apparently designed to strengthen
the South Caucasus state’s ties with the United States.
Forty-six troops including 30 truck drivers, 10 bomb detonation
experts, three doctors and three officers will serve under Polish
command in the Shiite city of Karbala and the nearby town of al-Hila.
The troops could serve in Iraq for up to a year and would only carry
out humanitarian operations.
“This day is very important for Armenian armed forces. We cannot stay
away from international processes geared toward promoting stability
and peace in our region, particularly in Iraq,” Defense Minister
Serge Sarkissian stated at a January 18 departure ceremony in
Yerevan.
The decision to send the platoon comes amidst rising concerns that
Armenia may lose out to Azerbaijan, and Georgia, in the competition
for US assistance. The Bush Administration’s proposed budget for 2005
would have originally granted $6 million more in military aid to
Azerbaijan than to Armenia. Congress, under pressure from the
influential US Armenian diaspora, later restored the traditional
parity in military assistance to the two countries with an allocation
of $5 million to each for 2005.
In a statement to reporters in December about the deployment of
Armenian troops, Sarkissian touched on that influence, stating that
“After the Armenian military specialists have been sent to Iraq,
international organizations and states that are involved in combating
terrorism will take a more objective attitude to all three South
Caucasus states . . . Armenia cannot have stayed aside from actions
by other states that are aimed at peace and stability, and at
combating terrorism,” Interfax reported.
Yerevan played a waiting game during the 2003 invasion of Iraq,
neither explicitly supporting nor opposing the operation. But now,
with other Commonwealth of Independent States members contributing to
the US-led reconstruction campaign, President Robert Kocharian’s
government has no wish to be left behind. Both of Armenia’s neighbors
in the Caucasus outrank it for troop deployments to Iraq. Azerbaijan
has committed 150 troops, and Georgia recently increased projected
troop numbers to 850, the highest number for the Caucasus. At the
same time, the country is benefiting from an extensive US military
training program.
Nonetheless, opposition to the deployment, even within the defense
ministry, appears to run strong.
“I am not delighted with the decision to send our troops there and
the war in general,” the English-language weekly ArmeniaNow quoted
Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Khachaturov as saying after the Armenian
National Assembly’s December 24 vote to dispatch troops. “Because of
that the Armenian community [in Iraq] and Armenians in general could
have problems in the future.”
Parliament’s decision to proceed with the troop deployment was
fiercely opposed by opposition parties and led to an alliance between
the Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnakcutyun, a member of the
ruling coalition, and Armenia’s main opposition bloc, Adrarutyn
(Justice). Opposition parties, which have been boycotting the
National Assembly for nearly 11 months, came to parliament for an
eight-hour, closed-door debate on the question. In the end, 91
deputies voted in favor of the proposal with 23 against and one
abstention.
The consequences of Armenian troops in Iraq for the Armenian diaspora
there spurred much of the criticism. Fear of retaliatory actions by
Islamic terrorist groups prompted Iraq’s 20,000-member Armenian
community, in fact, to ask Yerevan not to send the troops. In August
2004, a Baghdad Armenian Apostolic church was attacked as part of a
wave of assaults on Iraqi Christians that left 11 people dead.
“The situation is very tense now,” Father Garegin, a leader of Iraq’s
Armenian religious community, told the news agency Yekir.am. “People
do not leave their houses because they are scared. They can’t even go
to church . . . Our children can’t go to school.”
Any sign that it has discounted the concerns of a diaspora group
could put the government in an awkward situation given emigres’
investment in and economic support for Armenia in recent years. To
show that it understands the Iraqi group’s concerns, the government
has described the deployment as a strictly humanitarian mission.
Commenting on parliament’s decision, Prime Minister Andranik
Margarian told the newspaper Haiastani Hanrapetutiun on December 25
that “Armenia’s presence is primarily symbolic and for political
purposes.”
Public opinion has reflected this unease. A recent poll conducted by
the Armenian Center for National and International Studies reported
that 70.5 percent of Armenians opposed the deployment of troops to
Iraq. Only 15.6 percent, the poll found, supported the move.
Editor’s Note: Samvel Martirosyan is a Yerevan-based journalist and
political analyst.