OSKANIAN IS QUITTING. WHO’S COMING NEXT?
By A. Haroutiunian
AZG Armenian Daily
09/04/2008
Foreign Policy
It is said that the life is a sequence of coincidences and random
events, and it can be hardly explained by logical methods. However,
this point of view is inappropriate for politics, moreover for the
foreign policy of a state.
Tomorrow, as it came to be known, Foreign Minister of the Republic
of Armenia Vardan Oskanian is to resign from his office.
Tomorrow Mr. Oskanian is not to be the Foreign Minister any
longer, but today he is still the person responsible for the recent
failures of our foreign policy, and he shall ever remain one of the
greatest contributors of our achievements in that field. In any case,
irrespective of the skills and the experience of the Foreign Minister,
the weak positions of the Armenian diplomacy are rooted elsewhere.
It has been a long time that Armenia has needed a strong foreign
policy, able to make bold and important moves, which were avoided
equally by the President and the Foreign Minister. On the other hand
a number of urgent and important issues can make halt any candidate
on the way to the office of the Foreign Minister.
Particularly, after the passage of the Azerbaijani resolution at the
UN General Assembly, Armenia has a serious problem with positioning
itself in international organizations. In connection with this also
the Armenian Foreign Ministry decided to take defensive positions,
after having taken no action to prevent such developments. Armenia
claimed that the resolution is just a consultative document that
has no legal power and rejoiced with the number of vote abstentions,
instead of having dissuaded those who voted for the resolution.
There was always dissatisfaction with the functioning of Armenian
diplomatic representations in foreign states. After March 1 events
the Foreign Ministry also revealed having some trouble with its staff.
Some more examples can be brought from the Karabakh process and
particularly from the sphere of Armenian Foreign Ministry’s relations
with the mediating Minsk Group. The OSCE Minsk Group American Co-Chair
Matthew Bryza, the husband of the head of Hudson Institute Eurasia
Policy Department Zeyno Baran, is to be present to the inauguration
ceremony of President-Elect Serge Sarkisian.
Taking into consideration only those circumstances, it is well enough
to exclude the verbose, partial and senseless Co-Chairman from the
Minsk Group. Taking into account also the fact that Bryza is trying
to keep his image of a professional diplomat and pretend that his work
is by no means associated with his private life at the same time when
his wife is giving pro-Azerbaijani interviews and is warmly welcomed by
Aliev, the silence of the Armenian Foreign Ministry is merely foolish,
how complimentary our foreign policy be.
However, the era of complimentary policy shall possibly end with
Oskanian’s era. We should probable become more enterprising, but with
who – that is another question. Considering the currently pending
candidatures for the ministerial chair, no hope of success occurs,
unless, probably, Ambassador to France Edward Nalbandian becomes
the Foreign Minister. On the other hand Nalbandian’s chanced are
unfortunately rather modest.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
