RUBEN HAKOBYAN: THERE IS REASON TO WORRY, BUT NOT TO PANIC
Karen Ghazaryan

"Radiolur"
18.05.2010 17:16

There is reason to worry, but not to panic, Director of the "Akunk"
analytical center Ruben Hakobyan told a press conference today,
speaking about the influence of the Russian-Turkish relations on
regional developments. According to him, "Turkey has managed to become
a serious factor in the region thanks to good-neighborly relations
with Russia.

"We see the same warming of relations between Russia and Azerbaijan.

Naturally, this envisages greater role of Russia in the Karabakh
conflict settlement," Ruben Hakobyn said, adding that "the most
dangerous is that Armenia seems to have been left out of the process."

According to his assessment, this would be normal if Armenia was a
country able to reject any decision made without its participation.

Ruben Hakobyan does not rule out that Armenia might be forced to
accept decisions taken as a result of Russian-Turkish agreements.

"It’s a different question whether these decisions will be accepted
or not. It’s neither clear what price should be paid for it."

Director of the "Akunk" analytical center does believe that Armenia’s
main task in the current situation is to isolate Turkey from the
Karabakh settlement process. "Recalling the signature from the
protocols is the best way to do this. Before that it’s necessary to
fix concrete terms for ratification of the protocols," he said.