Agency WPS
What the Papers Say Part B (Russia)
February 2, 2007 Friday

NATO MOVES IN ON ARMENIA

by Yuri Simonian

Armenia remains Russia’s ally in the southern Caucasus; A seminar on
Armenian Defense Ministry reforms, scheduled to take place in Yerevan
on February 5-7, will also discuss the prospects of NATO membership
for Armenia. This announcement implies that Russia is about to lose
its primary – if not its only – ally in the Caucasus.

BODY:

A seminar on Armenian Defense Ministry reforms, scheduled to take
place in Yerevan on February 5-7, will also discuss the prospects of
NATO membership for Armenia. This announcement from the George
Marshall European Center for Security Studies implies that Russia is
about to lose its primary – if not its only – ally in the Caucasus.

Official Yerevan responded to the news with a categorical denial. "It
doesn’t bear any resemblance to reality. Armenia’s foreign policy
agenda doesn’t include the issue of NATO membership," Defense
Ministry Press Secretary Colonel Sejran Shahsuvarian said. According
to Shahsuvarian, the seminar organized by the Marshall Center will
take place in Yerevan indeed. Those present will discuss the planned
amendments to the law "On defense" and employment of civilians by the
Defense Ministry. Moreover, NATO at the seminar is going to be
represented only by several Bulgarian, Estonian, and Latvian experts.
"We sent a note to the Marshall Center on Thursday morning demanding
an explanation of what is clearly a false information. We haven’t
received any answer so far," Shahsuvarian said. Chief of the Defense
Ministry PR Department Vrej Israelian hopes that the explanations
will be exhaustive. "No, I don’t know who might have needed this
false report made," he said.

However, there certainly must be something here because Russia’s
strategic partner in the southern part of the Caucasus has
intensified its dialogue with NATO. A NATO evaluation commission is
in Yerevan at present, inspecting compliance with Armenia’s IPAP
commitments. The fifth team of Armenian peacekeepers was dispatched
to Iraq in late January. At about the same time the government of
Armenia told the Defense Ministry to go ahead and discuss
organization of Joint Effort 2007, an international military exercise
on the territory of Armenia, with the US Defense Department and US
Army European Command. Last but not least, Armenia will join the
Ukrainian-American Sea Breeze 2007 exercise as an observer on March
13-15.

Nora Gevorkian, an expert in NATO activities in the southern part of
the Caucasus, ascribes the interests in reports on Armenia-NATO
contacts to their virtual absence until recently. "NATO was
associated with Turkey, Alliance member since 1952. Turkey’s policy
of the blockade was regarded as the policy of NATO itself," Gevorkian
wrote in her report. Everything changed in 2000 when Armenia found an
ally in NATO (Greece) which helped it form a battalion of
peacekeepers for UN operations. "NATO membership is not on the
agenda. Pragmatic as it is in evaluation of the regional security and
its shape, Armenia is advancing its relations with NATO step by step.
By and large, the republic is pursuing the policy of integration into
European structures. NATO is regarded as the leader in European
security," she said. Defense Minister Serj Sarkisian was quoted as
saying recently, "Relations with NATO will advance until appearance
of a collision between our commitments within the framework of the
CIS Collective Security Treaty Organization and NATO."

The canard the Marshall Center launched may be viewed as a message to
the Armenian authorities from the Western community, according to
Stepan Safarian, Director of the Center of National and Strategic
Studies. "With the elections coming up, the West a clear answer from
the Armenian authorities: does Yerevan aspire to NATO membership or
does it not? I don’t think that Yerevan will answer with a yes."
Parliament Speaker Arthur Bagdasarian’s statement in public that the
future of Armenia was inseparable from NATO cost him his job.
President Robert Kocharian is pro-Russian," Safarian said. On the
other hand, the Armenian authorities’ proclamation of the willingness
to join the European Union put Armenia in a tight corner in its
relations with NATO. The IPAP is something Yerevan was compelled to
launch. However, Georgia’s determination to join NATO (and its
potential entry in 2009) will certainly change things at the regional
level. "And yet, believing that Yerevan will necessarily turn in the
direction of Brussels in this eventuality is naive," Safarian added.

Source: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, February 2, 2007, pp. 1, 6

Translated by A. Ignatkin