NEITHER THE RULING POWER NOR THE OPPOSITION PERFECT
Gevorg Harutyunyan

Hayots Ashkhar Daily
Published on July 30, 2008
Armenia

Head of "Akunq" center of political analyses Ruben Hakobyan was the
guest of "Urbat" club today. The old inhabitant of the political
domain touched upon Armenian-Turkish relations and the process of the
settlement of Artsakh conflict, as well as represented his estimations
and predictions regarding the internal political situation and the
prospects.

The speaker said: " Because of the recent internal political
developments our foreign policy has appeared in a very tough situation.

Today Armenian diplomacy operates from not very favorable
positions. And the developments show that this situation can be
continuous.

But there is no political assessment to the existing situation. The
steps taken by the ruling power are not adequate to our foreign
policy."

R. Hakobyan assured that after the discussion of Azerbaijani resolution
in the UN, the stances of our neighbor countries, GUAM members,
Azerbaijan and Georgia changed in such a way that Armenia appeared
in de facto isolation.

"The negative accentuations regrettably became more profound due
to the presidential elections and post-election developments. PACE
resolutions 1609 and 1620 created unfavorable advocacy conditions for
Armenia and formed a negative international social opinion. In such
circumstances both the ruling power and the opposition have serious
problems in terms of democratic course of action, which has a very
bad impact on our expectations," the diplomat believes.

He considered a serious victory of Azerbaijani diplomacy the fact that
PACE confirmed that the failure of the settlement of Artsakh issue,
and that this territory is out of Azerbaijani control is an obstacle
for the establishment of democracy in our neighbor country.

The speaker said: "these formulations open a new field of serious
political maneuvers, for Azerbaijani diplomacy. The latter does its
best to solve these problems by all the possible means and not to
have any problems in democratic progress.

The analyst also assured that Russia never defends the interests of
any country in the region and is always guided by its own interests.

"We shouldn’t always remind Russia that we are their territorial
partner and that they must pursue pro-Armenian policy. Russia is quite
aware of what they need and we must know that there are no permanent
friends there are permanent interests.

R. Hakobyan says the announcement made by Serge Sargsyan regarding
the proposal made by Turkey about setting up a committee of Armenian
Turkish scientists proves that our diplomacy really leaves far from
being desired.

"For a long period of time I’m in political and diplomatic domain
and I have never seen Armenian diplomacy=2 0this much weak, today
I’m concerned about the fact that Armenian diplomacy is powerless
and inert.

When several years back ex Foreign Ministers manifested similar
initiative it aroused a hullabaloo. But today the president speaks
about it and the political forces don’t do anything except airs and
graces. What Serge Sargsyan said was much more grounded than the
coalition domain represents it. It is better to remove the issue
of the recognition of Armenian Genocide from the political agenda
and freeze it, than to set up a committee of scientists. After all
everyone knows that people buy or create history. What they propose
at the moment is really dangerous."

R. Hakobyan says in the created internal political situation the only
thing the ruling power does is to keep their power. "Of course they
take certain steps to reduce corruption risks in tax and customs
spheres and we must see that. But all this is inadequate to the
internal political situation. Except declarative statements the ruling
power doesn’t take any legal steps to create an atmosphere of mutual
agreement and mitigate the tension.

We can’t say that there are no political prisoners in Armenia,
in case when Alik Arzumanyan and Ararat Zurabyan are detained. As
for the opposition they also do their best to take power as soon
as possible and they sometimes take illogical steps to attain their
end. The initiative to appeal to Hague Court is a very low step. It
gives good grounds to Azerbaijan for speculations, which they will use
very soon. And those who have initiated it are well aware of this fact.

R. Hakobyan believes: "extraordinary presidential and parliamentary
elections are the only way out of this situation. These political
events must take place in one or one and a half year, to give the
possibility to the political forces to get prepared."