“NEW NEIGHBORHOOD” PROGRAM OUTLINES INTERRELATIONS BETWEEN US AND
RUSSIA IN SOUTH CAUCASUS, ARMENIAN EXPERT CONSIDERS
YEREVAN, JULY 1, NOYAN TAPAN. The “New Neighborhood” EU program
peculiarly outlined the interrelations between the US and Russia in
the South Caucasian region. Stepan Safarian, coordinator of studies of
the Armenian Center for National and International Studies, declared
this at the July 1 seminar organized by the center and dedicated to
Armenia’s role in the region. In his estimation, in the “New
Neighborhood” policy the American strategists gave Europe only the
role of a spreader of western, namely, democratic values, as well as
participation in oil projects. At the same time, Americans prefered
not to give Europe the right to solve issues of security in this
region. Stepan Safarian mentioned that cooperation between the US and
EU was more activized over the recent years than Russia was able to
use the contradictions between the EU and US. According to the expert,
some western analysts consider that Russia’s influence in the South
Caucasus is preserved owing to presence of a number of conflicts, the
solution of which can be a pretext in ending of a “Big Game” supposing
ousting of Russia from the South Caucasus. According to S.Safarian,
it’s worth considering the “europeanization” of such conflicts as
Dniester and Georgian-Abkhazian in the very context. He assured that
at present the issue of “europeanization” of Karabakh conflict is also
being considered in European structures. He mentioned that in this
respect Armenia should strive for using its potential of
“europeanization”.