MOSCOW’S MOVE TO IMPROVE RELATIONS WITH BAKU POINTS TO SERIOUS SHIFT IN RUSSIAN POLICY: DIRECTOR OF ARMENIAN CENTER FOR NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

Trend
July 1 2009
Azerbaijan

Director of Armenian Center for National and International Studies
Richard Giragosian especially for Trend News

In response to the recent state visit to Armenia by Georgian President
Mikheil Saakashvili, Enhanced Coverage LinkingMikheil Saakashvili,
during which the visiting Georgian leader was awarded a medal from
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and an honorary degree from the
Yerevan Sate University, several leading members of the Russian Duma
(or lower house of the Russian parliament) were very critical of the
Armenian authorities.

Yet ironically, there was also domestic criticism within Armenia
itself, by many who questioned the Armenian president’s decision to
"award" the Georgian leader with such "honors," while the majority
Armenian population of southern Georgia’s Javakheti region remain
subject to profound under-investment, under-development and widespread
poverty, as well as victim of Georgian policies that have failed
to uphold the most basic civic rights for the Armenian community
within Georgia.

But the Russian reaction was both sudden and surprisingly
strident.While this reaction by some Russian politicians does
not necessarily reflect any sudden negative developments in
Russian-Armenian relations, it is significant for three reasons.

First, the immediate Russian criticism of the Armenian reception of
the Georgian leader reveals more about Moscow’s continued hostility
toward Saakashvili, even now almost one year after the war between the
two countries.In this way, the primary message of the Russian response
was directed more against the Georgian leader than his Armenian hosts.

Second, the Russian response and criticism of Armenia reveals a
deeper and, for Armenia, a more disturbing trend, whereby Russia
has been increasingly arrogant and short-sighted in its treatment of
Armenia, the only reliable ally for Moscow in the region.Moreover,
Russian policy toward Armenia has been generally taking Armenian
friendship and loyalty "for granted," rather than as an expression
of a true strategic partner.And from this context, there is a danger
that Moscow will only continue to treat Armenia as a "vassal" state,
rather than as a strategic ally.

And finally, the third significant aspect of the Russian response
over Armenian-Georgian relations is the timing, especially as Russian
President Dmitry Medvedev visited Baku on his own state visit just
days after the Georgian leader was in Armenia.

This latest demonstration of Moscow’s move to improve relations
with Baku suggests that Armenia should be more concerned with a
more serious shift in Russian policy, marked by an improvement and
expansion in Russian-Azerbaijani relations and perhaps leading to a
modification in Russia’s traditionally pro-Armenian stance on regional
issues, including even the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.Thus, it is not
the Russian reaction to the Saakashvili state visit to Armenia that
matters most, but the deeper developments that the Russian reaction
to the visit has revealed.