EurasiaNet Organization
June 22 2005

UNITED STATES ADOPTS CAUTIOUS STANCE ON ARMENIA’S DEMOCRATIZATION

Emil Danielyan 6/22/05

The United States has stepped up efforts to promote democratization
in former Soviet states in recent years. Accordingly, opposition
leaders in Armenia are hopeful of receiving Washington’s support for
a renewed push to force President Robert Kocharian’s administration
from power in Yerevan. But US officials seem anxious to squelch such
expectations, insisting that they harbor no regime-change ambitions
for Armenia.

During a visit to Georgia in mid May, US President George W. Bush
offered effusive praise for the Rose Revolution led by Georgian
President Mikheil Saakashvili. [For background see the Eurasia
Insight archive]. Some politicians and pundits in neighboring Armenia
interpreted Bush’s statements as a thinly veiled call for
democratically oriented regime change throughout the Caucasus. Media
outlets in Yerevan have since speculated on who might be Washington’s
preferred successor to Kocharian. [For additional information see the
Eurasia Insight archive].

Members of the Bush administration now adamantly deny they want
political turnover in Yerevan. “We are not in the revolution
business,” a senior Bush administration official said in an
interview. The official went on to downplay Washington’s role in the
recent revolutionary trend, saying the United States was “not
responsible” for the successful popular uprisings in Georgia, Ukraine
and Kyrgyzstan. The official noted that the United States had
maintained good relations with the toppled leaders of the three
ex-Soviet states, Georgia’s Eduard Shevardnadze, Ukraine’s Leonid
Kuchma and Kyrgyzstan’s Askar Akayev. “We didn’t do anything to
trigger those events,” he said.

The senior administration official indicated that recent statements
made by President Bush should not be interpreted as a call for street
protests, or other anti-government action that undermines stability
in the region. “The [Armenian] opposition should not launch a
dangerous revolution or seek to humiliate the [Kocharian] regime,”
the senior administration official said, adding that Washington now
favors an “evolutionary process” of democratization.

Officials at the State Department made a similar point, saying that
the United States supports only the use of “legal means” in any
effort to bring about political change. US enthusiasm for regime
change seems to have cooled markedly since the May 13 violence in
Andijan, Uzbekistan. [For background see the Eurasia Insight
archive].

Armenia’s leading opposition parties have never recognized the
legitimacy of Kocharian’s disputed re-election in 2003, and they have
maintained a boycott of the country’s parliament. [For background see
the Eurasia Insight archive]. Apparently encouraged by Bush
administration rhetoric, opposition leaders have sent signals about
organizing another round of mass rallies aimed at forcing Kocharian
to step down. The first opposition protest effort stalled in 2004 in
the face of stiff governmental resistance. [For background see the
Eurasia Insight archive].

Of late, opposition rhetoric has taken on a more aggressive tone.
Embracing a pro-Western foreign policy agenda, some opposition
politicians have gone as far as to call for Armenia’s withdrawal from
the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty, and the country’s
accession to NATO. Russia and Armenia have traditionally enjoyed a
special strategic relationship. [For additional information see the
Eurasia Insight archive].

Aram Sarkisian, the outspoken leader of Armenia’s most radical
opposition party called Hanrapetutiun (Republic), traveled to
Washington in early June for meetings with White House and State
Department officials. He said the trip reinforced his resolve to
carry out a “revolution.” Sarkisian and other top opposition leaders
feel that they can count on Washington’s support in their
revolutionary endeavors.

“That is a dangerous and false assumption,” countered a State
Department official. He and other American officials indicated that
the US government does not regard regime change as a necessary
condition for Armenia’s democratization.

According to Cory Welt, a Caucasus and Central Asia analyst at the
Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, such
statements can be taken at face value. “From all indications that I
have seen, Armenia is definitely not a target [for the Bush
administration],” he said. “They tolerate the current regime in
Yerevan.”

Kocharian’s government drew praise from two US senators who visited
Yerevan recently. Sen. Charles Hagel, a Nebraska Republican,
professed to be “very impressed with the democratic reforms and
economic development that have taken place in Armenia.” Earlier, Sen.
Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican, downplayed Armenia’s troubled
history of tainted elections. [For background see the Eurasia Insight
archive]. “Elections alone don’t make democracy,” he told Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty on May 31.

Coleman’s remarks seemed at odds with the strong US criticism of the
last Armenian presidential election in 2003. The State Department
said at the time that Armenian authorities “missed an important
opportunity to advance democratization.”

The apparent contradiction between Bush’s pro-democracy rhetoric and
statements by other US officials makes it difficult to predict how
Washington might react if the next round of Armenian national
elections, due to occur in 2007, are plagued by irregularities. “I
don’t think the United States knows exactly what it wants right now,
and that’s part of the problem,” said Welt, the political analyst.

Editor’s Note: Emil Danielyan is a Yerevan-based journalist and
political analyst.