ON THE NECESSITY OF CONDUCTING AN ACTIVE FOREIGN POLICY
VARDAN GRIGORYAN

Hayots Ashkhar Daily
18 Oct 2008
Armenia

After some interesting initiatives undertaken in August-September,
Armenia’s foreign policy is again becoming passive and contemplative.

There is such an impression that our Foreign Ministry did not
thoroughly calculate the consequences of the post-Russian-Georgian
armed conflict developments, including those of the Armenian-Turkish
dialogue, and is now trying to somehow `proofread’ them. Whereas, it
was obvious from the outset that a bold step like this was going to
have both positive and negative consequences.

For instance, it is incomprehensible why the speeches delivered by the
Turkish and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers from the tribune of the
United Nations can produce a `cold shower’ effect on the Armenian side,
considering that the start of the dialogue and the amelioration of the
relationship are absolutely different political categories and should
be discussed at different levels.

The Foreign Ministry should have been prepared for such process of
developments and had at least a couple of `options’ in its `reserve’
for confronting the possible negative consequences.

The same concerns the Turkish parliamentary Speaker’s recent statements
on suspending the process of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
Here too, Armenia had and still has vast opportunities
; however, it
continues to remain under the influence of the `cold shower’ mentioned
above.

Whereas, time never stops, and the passiveness of our foreign-political
administration together with the activeness of the Turkish side can
soon lead the new initiatives in the sphere of the recognition of the
Armenian Genocide into a deadlock.

Another example of a passive and contemplative attitude towards the
threats to Armenia’s national security is the Armenian party’s
indifference to the new manifestations of the Israeli-Azerbaijani
military-technical cooperation which has a history of many years. Our
Foreign Ministry has not made any response to the sensational
disclosures, first published in the Israeli `Haarets’ newspaper and
then re-printed in the Azerbaijani press. As shown by those
publications, the Azerbaijani army was supplied with Israeli arms and
ammunitions costing hundreds and millions of Dollars. In this
connection, Zhirayr Aratounyan, former Chairman of the Council of
Directors of the Armenian National Congress of America, has made a
statement in the United States. However, Armenia, as a state, has much
greater chances for suspending such processes because Israel is very
susceptible to any fact of military-technical cooperation with Iran,
its neighboring country.

So, if the neighboring countries demand that Armenia refrain from any
attempts of cooperating with its neighbor, they should also have20a
similar attitude towards the extension of the Israeli-Azerbaijani
military-technical cooperation. But who is supposed to make all these
demands `heard’ by our western partners, as well as the Israeli
officials? Who else apart from the Foreign Ministry is supposed to
counteract, make responses to and prevent all that? Whereas the
developments taking place around Armenia are so stormy and
unpredictable that our country will have to respond to them in the near
future. So, observing cautiousness is no longer the key issue; it is
now time for making predictions and calculations and elaborating
rational steps. And such steps should be based upon new initiatives
that will be necessary for the implementation of an active policy in
conditions of the regional and global developments and make it possible
to resist the external challenges.

The Karabakh settlement talks which were partially frozen during the
presidential elections in Azerbaijan will soon resume. And prior to the
negotiations, the US Under-Secretary of State has arrived in Armenia.
Besides, Russian President D. Medvedev is scheduled to visit Armenia on
October 20-21. The name of the new US President will definitely become
clear in about two weeks, and then attempts will be made to clarify the
NATO-Georgia relations, something that has a crucial importance for the
relationship between Russia and the United States.

In conditions of such an overloaded and complex
`regional agenda’ full
of various hazards, the passiveness of Armenia’s foreign policy may
eventually lead to a loss of time and initiative.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress