Only 34.7 per cent of Armenians want NATO membership – poll

Only 34.7 per cent of Armenians want NATO membership – poll

Mediamax news agency
1 Jul 05

YEREVAN

Only 34.7 per cent of Armenian citizens and 52.5 per cent of experts
advocate Armenian membership in NATO, an opinion poll has shown.

The sociological survey called “Armenia’s place and role in the
region” was commissioned by the Armenian centre for national and
strategic studies (ACNIS) and conducted among 40 experts and 1,500
citizens who represent various sections of Armenia’s population,
Mediamax news agency reports.

Thirty per cent of the experts and 33.9 per cent of the polled
citizens were against Armenia’s membership in NATO.

It is noteworthy that 22.2 per cent of the experts and 24.9 per cent
of the citizens who were against the membership explained their
position by the absence of normal relations between Armenia and
Turkey.

Of the citizens who opposed NATO membership, 52.9 per cent believe
that Armenia must have a common security policy with Russia and must
remain a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. None
of the 40 polled experts shared this point of view.

On the other hand, 77.8 of the polled experts said that “NATO does not
expect Armenia to join it and it is meaningless to think about this”.