WHY SHOULD WE ALWAYS ACT AS CONTRADICTORS?

Lilit Poghosyan

Hayots Ashkhar Daily
Published on July 04, 2008
Armenia

We continue the interview with Republican MP ARTAK DAVTYAN who presents
his views on the unused potentials of the Armenian diplomacy and the
"mechanisms" of running the Turkish-Azerbaijani blockade

"You insist that Armenia’s encirclement by Azerbaijan and Turkey
impedes the development of democracy in our country. Some people may
contradict you by saying that the encirclement has nothing to do with
democracy; it is just a pretext for justifying the anti-democratic
manifestations of the ‘authoritarian’ regime."

"How come? You are aware that one of the strategic trends of the
Government’s activity is the poverty eradication program. I don’t think
there will be any divergence of opinions with regard to the fact that
we would have greater achievements and solve much more problems in
case the blockade was raised.

A significant part of our population, more than 860 thousand citizens
currently live below the line of poverty. In such conditions it is,
mildly speaking, unrealistic to discuss the principles of democracy
and certain European values.

It is also very important for the people to believe in the same
European and Western values. And how can they believe in them when
Armenia has been blockaded for 20 years, i.e. since the country’s
gaining independence?

But, strange though it is, the European community won’t touch upon
the issue. Moreover, considering its own interests, it provides direct
or indirect assistance to all the programs circumventing Armenia.

In such conditions the following question comes up: does the
international community promote the peaceful settlement of the conflict
by assisting and hence – contributing to the process of strengthening
Azerbaijan, at the same time refusing to respond to the bellicose
statements of the latter? And if Azerbaijan has decided to unleash a
war against us once again, what other task is left to us apart from
eliminating the threat to our security?

That’s to say, we have a task to extend the security zone with the
purpose of preventing any attempt by the neighboring country to extend
its ‘vital’ territory at the expense of our state.

We must speak about this all the time and present our viewpoints, so
as the international community will be held accountable and explain
why its own system of values is being ignored and why a country
like Azerbaijan which, with its bellicose ambitions, endangers both
the regional energy and communication programs and the sums of its
tax-payers, should become powerful at the expense of Armenia.

So, we should view all this as some integrity, as an action plan and
introduce all these issues to our Western partners in succession,
depending on the urgency of the problem and, being in constant and
systematic cooperation with the international organizations, make
our attitudes accessible to them. It is also in consideration of
this factor that we insist on Karabakh’s having a land border with
Armenia because we have seen and are aware of the consequences of a
100 percent blockade."

"The Armenian organizations of the Diapsora are working diligently
for achieving the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide,
but they don’t seem to make equivalent efforts for voicing those
issues in the international tribunals."

"Naturally, the Diaspora should be involved in this process as well and
create relevant resources and provide an information field for making
our views clear and perceivable. Let’s also bear in mind that being
somehow detached from Armenia, the Diaspora anticipates our Foreign
Ministry to give it some impulses. And if such impulses are missing,
the Diaspora does not make sepcific efforts that direction.

Perhaps, it was also due to the fact that we once assumed a ‘childish’
posture by saying that ‘there’s nothing wrong with us, and if we have
lived without roads for so long, we’ll go on living like this for 100
years to come.’ I don’t think this approach is justified. Especially
considering that the closed roads pose a danger both to our economy
and the democratization of our country. If the West and all the
organizations advocating democracy, as well as the democratic countries
raise their voice and adopt a resolution condemning our country’s
encirclement, they will thus stimulate our people’s belief in the
western values, democracy and the same international organizations.

This is a powerful impulse that the Foreign Ministry prompts in
which direction to work. In this respect I attach importance to our
President’s recent statement with regard to the importance of raising
the country’s blockade.

Our most important argument which we, for some reason, remember only
from time to time is the following: the Karabakh war was forced by
Azerbaijan, and each war has its consequences. In this particular case,
the consequence is what we have now.

As regards the "occupied territories, everybody realizes well that if
we really had such problem, we might have occupied 80 or 100 percent
of Azerbaijan and not 20 percent as claimed by the country. And this
is something that didn’t happen.

Summing up what I said, I have to state once again that we must make
the problem of the blockade one of our pivotal issues – one of the
priorities of Armenia’s foreign policy.