Global Politician, NY
June 17 2005

Interview with Prof. Safrastyan: “Armenia Must Get Rid Of Its Complex
As Russia’s Younger Brother”

GP Interviews – 6/17/2005

Prof. Ruben Safrastyan, Ph.D. is a Professor of International
Relations at Acharyan University in Yerevan, Armenia. He’s also the
Director of the Department of Turkish Studies at Institute of
Oriental Studies, Armenian National Academy of Sciences. In the past,
he served as a Counselor of the Armenian Embassy in Germany and was
the Deputy Director of the Department of Political Analysis for the
Office of the President of Armenia.

Q: How do you assess the changes that have taken place in
Russian-Turkish relations lately?

A: Answering this question, I would like to draw your attention to
the geopolitical approaches of Russia. I must say that a number of
major documents presenting the country’s geopolitical approaches were
drafted in Russia during the last years. It should be mentioned that
the documents were drafted under the immediate leadership of Vladimir
Putin. I mean foreign policy, national security and military
concepts. These documents present a number of major approaches of
which I would single out the multipolar world outlook. The second
major approach is that Russia is regarded as the largest Eurasian
state, which will be surrounded by a zone of friendly states. The
third major conceptual approach is that Russia is ready to apply
nuclear weapon first if its national interests are endangered.

If we regard the mentioned conceptual approaches in the context of
our region, we’ll see that we are in the epicenter of the realization
of these approaches. In particular, if we consider the changes and
new phenomena that have been observed in Russian-Turkish relations
lately, we’ll see that here we can speak about Russia’s new
geopolitical tendencies, in particular, aimed at creating a zone of
friendly or at least not hostile states around it. Russia’s policies
towards Turkey, in my opinion, pursue this very goal, of course not
to turn Turkey into a friendly state of Russia, but to weaken US
influence and Turkish links with the West as far as possible and, if
possible, to connect Turkey with Russia.

Q: What measures are being taken by Russia to strengthen its
geopolitical influence in the region and specifically in the sphere
of Russian-Turkish relations?

A: At the current stage Russia, of course, cannot take large-scale
measures to strengthen its geopolitical influence, however, Russia is
using the vast reserves of natural wealth it possesses to implement
its policies, particularly for geopolitical purposes. If we consider
Russian-Turkish relations in the context of the “Blue Stream”
project, the following will become clear: in fact, besides financial
benefits for Russia, it also implies Turkey’s closer connection with
Russia. So, when the realization of this scheme is completed, Turkey
will receive 80% of gas from Russia. At present, about 60-65% of gas
entering Turkey is received from Russia.

Interestingly, Turkey, in its turn, has a wish to play a leading role
in Russian policies in this sphere. So, it’s natural that this
prospect should meet quite a stiff opposition of the USA.

Q: What are the other areas where closer Russian-Turkish relations
are possible?

A: It is issues connected with arms delivery. Turkey has declared
that it is to implement a program of armaments modernization worth
over $100 billion within the next few years. Russian diplomacy is
making quite serious efforts to ensure Turkey gets part of these arms
from Russia. Representatives of relevant circles of Russia and Turkey
conducted quite intensive negotiations over this issue recently. No
final decisions have been made yet, but there are signs
that Russia will manage to convince Turkey to get at least some of
the new arms from Russia. There are even talks that Russian arms are
to be manufactured in Turkey and supplied to other countries.

Q: How can the new quality of these relations impact Armenia?

A: The right understanding of Russia’s policy is very important for
us. It is not an anti-Armenian policy – Russia has repeatedly
declared at the highest levels that Armenia and Russia are strategic
allies, which is a very important circumstance. I think that our
country’s political forces should not speculate on these new
phenomena in the Russian-Turkish relationship and jump to conclusions
about the anti-Armenian orientation of Russian policies. Russia is a
big state and has geopolitical and geo-economic interests of its own.
In this sense I attach importance to everyday contacts of Armenian
and Russian representatives at all levels and in all spheres.
Besides, it is necessary that the position of Russia’s elite, their
ideology should be studied thoroughly and new approaches be
elaborated accordingly.The world is changing, and so are the region
and Russia, but we still consider ourselves to be a younger brother.

In my opinion, Armenia must get rid of its “younger brother” complex
that it developed in relation to Russia.