Los Angeles Times, CA
Oct 20 2007
‘There are no Christians to the east of us’
Armenian Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan talks geopolitics
October 19, 2007
Serzh Sargsyan, the prime minister of Armenia (and a former defense
minister and interior minister before that), came by the editorial
board Oct. 19 to discuss the Armenian genocide resolution,
democratization in Armenia, and military tensions in the Caucasus
region. Sargsyan spoke through a (very good) translator, which means
that the transcription will inevitably sound a bit second-languagey
at times. Some highlights:
(On his visit to the United States.)
Jim Newton: So what brings you to Los Angeles?
Serzh Sargsyan: You are probably aware of the destiny of our people.
We are spread all over the world. One-third of our people live in
Armenia; two-thirds live abroad. And within the system of Armenian
diaspora the role of Armenian-Americans is very important. And in
California and Los Angeles most part of the Armenian-American
community lives. […] I have been to the United States many times,
but I was in a different status: I used to be the defense minister of
Armenia, and it was not mandatory for the defense minister to meet
all the Armenian communities. But the prime minister is obliged to,
so this is my obligation that I’m conducting.
Newton: How long are you here for?
Sargsyan: I leave tomorrow. But it’s a sufficient time to meet my
compatriots. You know Armenians are indeed one country with its
diasporans, one country without. Without our diaspora we are just [a]
three million-strong nation that is situated somewhere in Caucasus
region. And about which most people in the world may even not be
aware of. But with our diaspora, we’re a totally different country.
Matt Welch: Do you feel some sense of responsibility for the diaspora
in other countries?
Sargsyan: Of course. Of course, but we have some kind of national
specifics. I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but it is that way.
Wherever our compatriots live in the world, first of all they think
of themselves of belonging to that very country, and then only to
belong to the Armenian nation.
At some period when I was not really very informed about this, there
was some curious situations happening. For example we have a
compatriot, an Armenian-American who lives in New Jersey, […] and
we’ve been talking to him. And he was saying like, "Our president
said this and that" and so on. And I was saying, "No, our president
didn’t say this, he couldn’t say this!" And after having a long
argument it turned out that he meant the United States president and
not the Armenian president. And I meant the Armenian president!
Welch: Uh, can you characterize your discussions in Washington with
Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Gates?
Sargsyan: Well we have discussed with Secretary Gates about
Armenian-American relationship in the security area, in the area of
military cooperation. In recent times our military cooperation has
deepened a lot. And the United States assists us in reforming our
armed forces. They assist us to increase our capabilities in
peacekeeping. Of course we have serious problems in our region; we
have unresolved issues, there is a probability of re-launching of
military activities in our region, because there are some unresolved
conflicts, but at the same time we are doing our best to increase our
capabilities in peacekeeping.
Welch: Uh, just to interrupt, probability or "possibility"?
Sargsyan: Both. (Laughs.)
Welch: Fair enough. Go on.
Sargsyan: But in order to be able to take part in international
peacekeeping activities our armed forces need to be compatible with
the internatinal armed forces, need to be collaborative with them,
and need not to be less prepared. We’re taking part of [the] Kosovo
mission with a small contingent, and another small contingent is
participating in Iraq as well. And it’s obvious that the defense
secretary of the United States was curious to discuss this.
As regards meeting with the vice president, it’s obvious that the
range of issues was broader, because our cooperation with the United
States is not limited to military or security issues. The United
States has an invaluable role in developing democracy in our country.
They have an important role in solving the social problems that exist
in Armenia. Apart from the annual government assistance that is
rendered from the United States to Armenia, we also have a very
important area that’s called the Millenium Challenge Account. And as
you may know, the United States is never assisting any country with
closed eyes. United States assists those countries that make their
own effort to be better, that make everything possible to improve
themselves. We have also spoken about regional issues with the vice
president. I’ve told him about our problems, our issues in the
region, and I asked him, I requested assistance from him. It’s been
my first meeting with the vice president, and if I may say so, I’m
very glad for this meeting.
Welch: Did you discuss the Armenian genocide recognition resolution?
Sargsyan: No.
Welch: Can you characterize how important — if at all — such
resolutions are from the standpoint of, uh, the foreign relations of
Armenia?
Sargsyan: You know, it’s extremely important. But first of all I
wouldn’t say that it’s important from the point of view of the
Armenian foreign policy — it’s extremely important from the Armenian
perspective as a nation, as a people.
We can divide this issue into two parts conditionally. The first part
is merely the historical justice. And the second perspective is
today’s security initiatives, from the point of view of today’s
security.
You know we cannot be calm and relaxed having a neighbor that has
committed a genocide and is now rejecting it. They not only refuse to
recognize the genocide, but they commit a blockade of [the] Armenian
border now. And we are having a neighbor that refuses to establish
normal civilized relationships.
We understand that we have not selected the place that we live now in
the world. And we are aware that we have lived in that area for
centuries, for thousands of years, and we are to live there for
thousands of years ahead. But our neighbors should understand this as
well. You know, homeland — fatherland, motherland — is not a place,
is not an apartment that you can sell and go somewhere else. It would
be very good if everyone understood this. And if we have problems it
would be good to resolve these problems by communicating with each
other, by negotiating, by discussing.
Tim Cavanaugh: How large a role does religion play in this, given
that both of the countries we’re talking about are predominantly
Muslim countries and Armenia is predominantly a Christian country?
Sargsyan: We have long avoided talking about this factor and taking
it into account. And not only in respect of our relationship with
Turkey but also with neighboring Azerbaijan. But irrespective of our
wish, this factor exists, and the factor is very big. The factor is
as big; as we can expand it over milleniums and thousands of years,
this was probably the only reason of our conflict. There are no
Christians to the east of us. And if I can use this word, we are at
the edge of Christianity. But the edge has the amortization problems.
And over thousands of years we were wearing out. (Ambassador Tatoul
Markarian whispers into the prime minister’s ear.)
Sargsyan: The ambassador reminds me to tell that we have excellent
relationship with many Muslim countries. (Room erupts in laughter.)
Jon Healey: Ahhh, "some of my best friends" …
Sargsyan: I think we are dealing with informed people here, people
who are professionals.
Newton: That’s why you’re an ambassador!
Sargsyan: In respect of the Karabakh issue, we have a problem, and
probably we are one of those rare people in the world that’s a small
Christian minority [that] is subject to a large Muslim majority, in
the case of Karabakh. And here as well this factor has a very
important role. And once again I want to say that yes, this factor
exists.
Newton: May I ask, will it in your view damage the relations between
the United States and Armenia if the Congress does not approve the
resolution?
Sargsyan: No, never. Never. And I have to say that in passing this
resolution, the lion’s portion of the role belongs to the Armenian
community in the United States, not the Republic of Armenia.
Lisa Richardson: Excuse me — will it exacerbate relations between
Armenia and Turkey?
Sargsyan: If it’s passed? I don’t think that it should exacerbate,
because there is no other level. I don’t think Turks will invade
Armenia. We have no relationship; the border is closed. And I mean,
frankly speaking, even if Turks do something wrong to Armenia, I
don’t think it’s going to be fair, anyway.
What can Armenia do? We cannot influence U.S. politics. U.S. politics
can be influenced by citizens of the United States, including the
Armenian citizens. Unfortunately Turks think this way once in a
while, and they say that the Republic of Armenia needs to influence
the Armenian community in the United States. God will judge how fair
they are, saying this. I think they are not fair.
You know, France has passed a similar resolution, and I don’t think
something awful has taken place. I think after all, being it in one
year, 10 year or 20 years, this problem cannot [last]. And the sooner
the better, for us and for the Turks.
Newton: Why does this issue matter more to Armenian-Americans than to
Armenians?
Sargsyan: I wouldn’t say it is more important for the Amernian
Americans than for the Armenian Armenians — I think for all the
Armenians in the world this issue is very important. But for one part
of our people this problem was more important because it concerned
themselves immediately.
If we don’t take into account the Armenians that came to the United
States recently, the rest of the Armenians fled to the United States
after the genocide. The genocide took place in the western Armenia,
which is now in Turkey. And in many circumstances, someone’s
grandmother was killed, someone’s grandfather was killed, someone’s
uncle was killed. And the world is for the humans, everyone can live
anywhere. It’s good if someone chooses where to live voluntarily.
Because of the genocide these people were deprived of living in their
own homeland. And apparently because this issue concerns themselves
directly, they are more sensitive about this issue.
(On the problems with Armenian democracy.)
Welch: The, uh, 2003 elections in Armenia were criticized by the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, by the U.S.
State Department I believe, by non-governmental organizaitons. Um,
and the crackdown after the elections were also criticized. My
question is, do you agree with those assessments, one; and two, what
are you doing to prepare the upcoming elections to be free and fair?
Sargsyan: […] I’m surprised with your question. Why do you go back
to the year 2003? Some five years have passed since then. And after
that there were elections held in Armenia, that [the] international
communitity evaluated very highly. And these elections were
considered to meet international standards. And this is the ground
base for us. And we think that there can be no worse elections in
Armenia in the future.
Welch: Partly because I just read today that Hasnik Navasardian — if
that name means; if I mangled the pronunciation — she warned against
your consolidation of power, and she expressed doubts that the
elections will be held in a free and fair way.
Sargsyan: I don’t know what to say. I think that’s an evidence of
existing democracy in Armenia that some Hasnik Navasardian is free to
say anything. (Laughs) Do you know of any country that has no people
that are not satisfied with the country? It’s a battle, it’s a
struggle, it’s a competition, the elections. And everyone understands
that this struggle has two parts — there are winners and losers. And
there will be people that will not be satisfied always. And the
problem is to make the number of these people lower.
And I think we’ve reached this goal at the time of 2007 parliamentary
elections; and the most important factor was that our people believed
in these elections. Not by 100%, but the majority believed it. And
it’s good that the opinion of the international organizations
corresponded to the opinion of our people. […] Again, others can
express their opinios. And these kind of opinions have importance for
us in terms of keeping ourselves fit. Will it be good if all the
newspapers and all the journalists write that Armenia is a brilliant
country? […]
Welch: We asked our readers to submit questions to you, so I’d like
to ask you one. This comes from Garen Megerditchian. Sorry for
mispronouncing it. It involves the case of a judge named Pargev
Ohanian, and he says the story of Pargev Ohanian is "symptomatic of
the prevalance of corruption in modern-day Armenia." He says, "your
government has so far not been effective enough in rooting out
corrupt practices among government officials. How can you explain
this failure to clean house?"
And I should say that most of the questions were, "Welcome to the
United States, Mr. Prime Minster."
Sargsyan: You know these kind of questions are always helping us, in
many terms, first of all in terms of explaining the policies of the
government. First of all, please inform […] Mr. Garen Megerditchian
through your newspaper that our government exists for three, four
months now and it’s impossible to eliminate corruption within that
period of time. If it was possible it would have been done before
myself. The government works for only three or four months now.
The second problem is that the system of justice in Armenia is indeed
independent already, and neither the government nor the head of the
government will influence it now. We have our own problems in the
fight against corruption, and I have never refused that there exists
this problem.
What have we done? We have already made some changes in our systems.
For example in our tax system, in our customs. […] And the aim of
this policy is to fight against corruption in various directions —
to improve the legislation, transparency of activities, less
dependence of all the processes upon state officials, increase of
salary of the state officials, and so on.
But you can always accuse any government that the very government is
not fighting corruption effectively enough. This can be done
especially easier by people that are not professional in the field.
The professionals have a different opinion, and the international
organizations that are dealing with this issue have a different
assessment of the area. We have added some indicators, improved our
indicators already this year. And the most important indicator is
that of the tax collection that international organizations take into
account very much. We used to have not very good indicators in tax
collection, but I hope to have fairly good ones by the end of this
year. It’s probably a bit difficult for you to understand this, but
the state structure in Armenia is a bit different.
Cavanaugh: You, uh, came of age and were educated and entered into
leadership positions in the Soviet period. How equipped are you, and
what are you doing to modernize the economy of Armenia? And stapled
question to that is: How important is the diaspora to the Armenian
economy?
Sargsyan: First of all I need to repeat that Armenia is one country
with its diaspora and another one without its diaspora. And I’m
convinced that having such a resource, the diaspora, we are not
really effectively using this resource. Before leaving for the United
States, a couple of days before, I had a meeting with the leadership
of the Russian-Armenian community, with the world congress of
Armenians. And I brought an example there: International experts
assess the Armenian capital, the combined Armenian capital of the
world to be equal to $100 billion. When I told about this to a group
of Armenian businessmen in Moscow, they smiled, these Armenian
businessmen in Moscow smiled after hearing this figure, and said this
much money they had themselves. (Laughter). I told about this to
[…] a prominent businessman in the United States and the United
Kingdom, and he said it’s not true, it should be at least $300
billion.
Let it be not $300, not $200, let it be $100, OK? If we could attract
at least 1% of these resources every year to Armenia, then within a
short period of time there will remain no social problems in Armenia.
That is, again we are using a very small portion of our resources,
and this is very important.
And for using these resources it doesn’t really matter when you were
born, in Soviet times or after that. And believe me, it doesn’t
really matter if you have graduated from Sorbonne, from Harvard, or
from Yerevan State University. We have people in our government who
are responsible for the development, they have serious education,
they know the modern ways of doing business, they know the modern
economy, and it’s important that the prime minister is able to
consolidate all these efforts.