ARMENIA WILL NOT GO TO WAR WITH GEORGIA, SAYS ARMENIA’S PRESIDENT
Tert
Sept 21 2009
Armenia
Armenia’s current leadership will not take any steps which will
distance the country from Russia, announced President of Armenia
Serzh Sargsyan in an interview with Russian paper Mosovski Komsomolets
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"As for the changes in relations with Turkey, if those are unacceptable
for Russia, then why does Russia consider Turkey its military
partner? Azerbaijan, similarly, is Russia’s military partner. Russia
is a strong country, and it befriends whoever it chooses: one has oil;
the other, gas. And what should be live on? Air?
"Here, even without that, a part of the borders are closed. Some
people judge us, that after the events which took place in Georgia
last year, we were safeguarding a connection with Georgia, though
we are not prepared to become enemies with Georgia simply to satisfy
someone. We are extremely close with each other. During the five-day
war in South Ossetia, when the Tbilisi-Yerevan train stopped running
for a time, there was practically no gas left in Armenia.
"Yes, imagine that we didn’t even have a one-week reserve of gas. We
don’t have an exit to the outside world: on one side, Turkey is
closed to us; on the other side, is Azerbaijan and the issue of
Nagorno-Karabakh; the third border is Georgia. The possibility of
having political freedom, [and] in order not to become cannon fodder,
we are forced not to lose relations with our neighbours and to search
for new alternative paths.
"Currently we are attempting to establish communication with Iran, to
create a common railway, though that same Russia won’t help us in this
regard. Why does everything work out this way if you are interested
in us? What is there left for us to do?" said the Armenian president.