SWINDLING OR TREACHERY
Armen Tsaturyan

Hayots Ashkhar Daily
09 Sep 2008
Armenia

The activists of Armenian Pan National Movement under the name of
"Armenian National Congress" try to represent the necessity of starting
a new wave of demonstrations from September 12, as "the beginning of
the crucial stage of the national struggle against tyranny".

Of course we have many times witnessed similar "crucial stages" when
people become extremely enthused and immediately get disappointed. But
as usual waiting for the beginning of the same boring scenario we can’t
help recording that in terms of time it can match with the culmination
of the developments taking place in the "region and around it".

If the opposition used to consider end of September as the decisive
stage of their actions, at the moment it has been canceled up to
October.

Similar bizarre "friendliness" undoubtedly derives from the "schedule"
of the new developments expected in the region. September is going to
be a crucial stage for the negotiations and at the end of the week
UN will convene its General Assembly. The US Presidential elections
are in November, which means the necessity of the clarification of
regional issues will very soon appear.

Not only does the situation intensify in the South Caucasus, but also
new difficulties and obstacles appear. Let’s enumerate o nly part of
them: besides intensively furnishing Georgia with arms, in the recent
times the USA, International Currency Fund and the European Union have
unimaginably increased the sum allocated for official Tbilisy. This
fact and especially the appearance of NATO’s military ships in the
Black Sea made Russia very nervous.

By Moscow’s instigation Armenian – Turkish negotiations are becoming
more and more vital; soon Armenian – Azerbaijani negotiations will
be added to it.

Turkey, in its turn, plays a double game, trying to suppress the
activeness of the both sides and benefit from the created situation,
and besides all this they secretly participate in furnishing Georgia
with arms.

In the near future a very serious crises can start in the Middle East
as well, linked with Iran’s nuclear programs, etc, etc.

It is natural that in such circumstances the internal political
situation created in Armenia directly depend on the situation created
in the region.

Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s interview regarding the developments in South
Osatia is the bright example of the awareness of this situation. The
interview was followed by the reverences addressed to the West. Davit
Shanazaryan’s "in-law diplomacy", who left for the Unites States
under the plea of participating in the Congress of the Democrats,
was the new proof of the before mentioned.

In parallel reverences were addressed to Turkey by=2 0the "Congress",
by postponing their demonstration planned before the football game.

And in the recent days Armenia’s first President made another
swindling announcement, in his interview under the heading "We Will
Strengthen the Pressure on the Regime", given to the Russian newspaper
"Moskovskaya Pravda". In response to the question about solving the
crises faced by Armenia by "the realization of fundamental reforms",
Ter-Petrosyan announced: "The regime is objectively not ready to make
radical reforms, because it will mean to saw the stump on which they
are sitting."

So we didn’t manage to clarify why and how are the authorities sawing
the stump instead of the brunch? But judging from Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s
obstinacy not to see the reforms made recently in Armenia it is not
difficult to conclude that he intends to benefit from the situation
created in the region.

Because the possibility of Armenian – Turkish and Armenian –
Azerbaijani negotiations is the best moment were we will be in need
of Ter-Petrosyan’s ideas.

Had we not faced swift and extremely dangerous developments in
our region we could easily ignore Ter-Petrosyan’s foreign policy
equilibristic. He could have given one interview per week, each time
expressing diametrically different ideas and finding himself in a
idiculous situation.

But the situation around Armeni a is so tough that the swindling of
the opposition leader is more like a treachery.