The tension between Russia and the West has led us to a point where there is a markedly narrow opportunity for complementarism, and it almost doesn’t exist. The second president of Armenia, leader of the opposition "Armenia" Bloc Robert Kocharyan stated about this during his year-end press conference Monday.
“During my presidency, we declared a policy of complementarism, but at the time, with regard to Russia-NATO relations, Russia had more plans with NATO than Armenia did. There was a special NATO-Russia Council. This means Armenia should orientate in a more comprehensible manner and state what it wants.
To this day, I haven’t understood the logic and course of Armenia’s foreign policy. For instance, the U.S> hosts a so-called democracy summit, and it’s clear that this is an anti-Russian and anti-Chinese project. What is Armenia doing there? This is an attempt to revitalize a trend that was rather powerful after the collapse of the USSR. At the time, the idea was that we were going to have a more predictable and safer world by democratizing the whole world, but then there were color revolutions with devastating consequences. The world has changed, and we can’t do things like this,” Kocharyan declared.
Kocharyan emphasized that if the West-Russia relations escalate further and there are extreme manifestations, this may harm Armenia, if it doesn’t have a strong army and powerful security system. According to him, the aim of the West is to remove Russia from this region or at least reduce its influence in this region essentially.
“For a rather long time, Russia would keep a distance from Armenia and Azerbaijan, and this was in Russia’s interests. However, the situation has changed in the South Caucasus after the war. I am certain that we are in a process that we can describe as geopolitical transformation in the South Caucasus. When Turkey entered the process and the Turkey-Azerbaijan tandem became totally different, it is hard to maintain equal distancing between Armenia and Azerbaijan,” he said. According to him, Armenia has lost the status of a country with the most combat-ready army and now it constantly needs protection.
Asked if this means that Armenia’s foreign vector needs to be geared only towards Russia, Kocharyan said the following: “Why is Armenia participating in anti-Russian and anti-Chinese events? There are several other formats in which there is no anti-Russianism. Of course, the balance needs to be maintained, but do the people who need to maintain that balance understand what that balance is?”
Kocharyan also surprisingly asked why Armenia is serving Turkey’s interests in the region.