Author: Antranik Varosian

Putin, Erdogan discuss conflicts in Libya, Syria in phone call

Antranik Varosian
Panorama, Armenia
Aug 17 2020

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan discussed the conflicts in Libya and Syria in a telephone call on Monday, Reuters reported. 
 
The Kremlin said that the two leaders, focused mainly on the crisis in Libya, where they back opposing sides, highlighting the need to make real steps towards a sustainable ceasefire.
 
The Turkish presidency said Putin and Erdogan also discussed a dispute between Turkey and Greece over energy exploration in the eastern Mediterranean, saying they “emphasised the importance of continuing close cooperation and dialogue”.
 
The Kremlin said they agreed to step up anti-terrorism efforts in Syria, after reports on Monday that a Turkish-Russian joint patrol was hit by a blast in the Idlib region. The Turkish presidency said Putin and Erdogan agreed to continue dialogue through diplomatic and military channel on Syria.

Greece-US Relations? No Conflict Here, Trump is Erdogan’s Guy

Antranik Varosian
The National Herald
Aug 20 2020
Αssociated Press

FILE- President Donald Trump, right, shakes hands with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, left, during a meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan, Saturday, June 29, 2019. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

With reports he's almost deferential to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdgoan, US President Donald Trump bragged that he's the one who has the Turkish leader's ear and other world leaders ask him to help out.

“The heads of countries last week they called me up, ‘could you call Erdogan?’” Trump said in an interview with Fox News, according to a report by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu agency.

The report said Trump said he had asked those leaders, whom he did not name, why he should be the one to contact Erdogan, to which they allegedly responded: “‘You’re the only one he’ll listen to. He doesn’t listen to us. You’re the only one’.”

“I don’t like saying this publicly, but it happens to be true. I get along with him and he listens,” Trump said, according to the report, which should be worrying to Greece and Greek-Americans about which way the US would tilt in a conflict.

Erdogan, whom Trump has called a friend and “a hell of a leader,” admiring the Turkish President’s authoritarian style, calls the US President as much as twice a day and was “put through directly” to the US President, CNN said in June.

Citing sources with knowledge of hundreds of confidential telephone calls between Trump and foreign heads of state during his four years in office, CNN said that Erdogan was among the leaders who was most frequently in contact with Trump.

“The frequency of the calls with Erdogan – in which the Turkish President continually pressed Trump for policy concessions and other favors – was especially worrisome to McMaster, Bolton and Kelly, the more so because of the ease with which Erdogan bypassed normal National Security Council protocols and procedures to reach the president,” CNN said, citing two sources, and referring to former national security advisers H.R. McMaster and John Bolton, and then-White House Chief of Staff John Kelly.

The same sources indicated that Trump was “woefully uninformed” over the issues discussed with Erdogan and was unable to “engage on equal terms in nuanced policy discussion,” in over his head with the experienced Turkish leader.

“Erdogan took him to the cleaners,” CNN’s Carl Bernstein quoted a source as telling him, indicating that Erdogan was able to steer policy in Turkey’s favor, such as Trump’s decision to pull American forces out of Syria, paving the way for Turkey’s operation against the Kurds who had been American allies there.

The United States and Greece last year renewed a military defense deal and engaged in a US-Greece Strategic Dialogue but Trump also tried to get the US Congress to go along with selling F-35 fighter jets to Turkey that could be used against Greece.

The US Navy has a base in Souda Bay on the island of Crete, has drones in operation in Greece and has engaged in joint military exercises but the US also has a military presence in Turkey and has been reluctant to get tougher on Erdogan.

Turkey has been stepping up provocations in the Aegean and the East Mediterranean, where Turkish drill ships are looking for oil and gas in Cypriot waters and Erdogan saying he would do the same off Crete under a maritime deal signed with Libya, dividing the seas.

A book by Bolton claimed that Trump agreed to intervene in a federal investigation into Turkish state-owned Halkbank at the request of Erdogan, who was said to have told Trump the bank was innocent and the US President wanting to do the Turkish leader’s bidding.

Halkbank, one of Turkey's biggest banks, has been under investigation by US prosecutors since 2018, when it was accused of using its currency businesses and front companies to transfer $20 billion in oil revenue to Iran – which was restricted by Washington's sanctions against the Islamic Republic.



RFE/RL Armenian Report – 08/09/2020

Antranik Varosian 
                                        Sunday, August 9, 2020

Armenia Sends First Planeload Of Humanitarian Aid To Lebanon
August 09, 2020

Armenia has sent the first planeload of humanitarian aid to Lebanon following a 
massive explosion in Beirut which killed at least 158 people and injured 
thousands of others earlier this week.

About 12 tons of medication, foodstuffs and other vital supplies in boxes with 
an inscription “From Armenia’s Heart To Beirut” were delivered to the Lebanese 
capital on board a chartered cargo aircraft that left Yerevan on Saturday 
evening.

The Armenian government said it will send two more planeloads of humanitarian 
aid to Lebanon in the coming days.


A cargo plane at Yerevan's Zvartnots airport being loaded with humanitarian 
supplies for Lebanon, August 8, 2020

The government in Yerevan pledged to provide relief aid immediately after the 
August 4 explosion at Beirut’s sea-port warehouses.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian described Lebanon as “one of Armenia’s closest 
friends,” implying the existence of a sizable and influential Armenian community 
in the Middle Eastern state.

At least 13 members of the community were reportedly among the victims of the 
explosion and more than 250 were injured. The devastating blast wave also 
destroyed or seriously damaged many Lebanese Armenian homes.

Zareh Sinanyan, the high commissioner for Diaspora affairs, who flew to Beirut 
along with some other government officials and lawmakers on August 8, said that 
the first planeload of humanitarian aid included items that had been asked for 
by the Lebanese government and was intended for the people and the state of 
Lebanon.

He said that the second and third planeloads of supplies to be delivered to 
Lebanon on August 9 and 11 will also include items designated for the Armenian 
community specifically.

“I find it important that the people of Lebanon understand that we remember the 
positive role that they played in the fate of our people when they granted 
asylum to Armenians fleeing the genocide [in Ottoman Turkey] and let Armenians 
prosper in their country for many years,” Sinanyan said.


Zareh Sinanyan, Armenia's High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs (file photo)
The high commissioner for Diaspora affairs said that in Beirut he planned a 
series of meetings with local Armenian leaders to assess the needs of the 
community as well as the potential for repatriation, which has been a stated 
goal of the current government in Yerevan.

“There are some 40 people who have expressed their desire to move to Armenia [on 
a permanent basis] immediately,” Sinanyan said. “There is another, much more 
sizable category of people who do want to move to Armenia, but cannot do it now 
because they want to solve issues connected with their property affected by the 
explosion. So, these are people who want to come in the medium to long term.”

The blast and its devastating consequences have led to calls for the evacuation 
of Lebanon’s ethnic Armenian nationals willing to relocate to Armenia. Some 
opposition politicians and public figures as well as Lebanese-born citizens or 
residents of Armenia have urged the Armenian government to launch special 
Yerevan-Beirut flights for that purpose.

Lebanon, a nation with a population of some 6.8 million, is home to more than 
150,000 ethnic Armenians, many of whom live in capital Beirut. As one of the 
Middle Eastern country’s minorities, Lebanese-Armenians also have their quota in 
top-level public positions, including in the government and parliament of 
Lebanon.


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2020 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

Lydian Armenia announces reassessment of personnel base in communities around Amulsar gold mine

Antranik Varosian
News.am, Armenia
Aug 11 2020

17:04, 11.08.2020
                  

Turkish press: Azerbaijani lawmaker: Turkey-Azerbaijan military drills demonstrate power, courage

Antranik Varosian
 ISTANBUL DIPLOMACY 
AUG 11, 2020 1:00 PM GMT+3
People demonstrate their support for Azerbaijan against the recent Armenian attacks, in Turkish capital Ankara, Aug. 8, 2020. (AA Photo)

Recent large-scale military drills performed jointly by Turkey and Azerbaijan have demonstrated the power, bravery and defense capabilities of both nations' armed forces, according to an Azerbaijani lawmaker.

"The military partnership constitutes an important vector of Azerbaijan-Turkey strategic cooperation," Sevil Mikayilova, an Azerbaijani parliamentarian, told Anadolu Agency (AA) Tuesday.

Referring to the 13-day joint military exercises – which ended on Monday – a "source of pride" for both nations, Mikayilova said the drills, which involved both air and ground forces, were not the first of their kind, as the two countries have been holding such exercises on a regular basis since 2015, sometimes in partnership with neighboring Georgia.

Cooperation between Azerbaijan and Turkey is not directed against any other country or group, she stressed, referring to cooperation as "for the sake of peace and partnership" springing from the two states' historical and cultural roots and ethnic identity.

"For Azerbaijan, Turkey is the closest ally and fraternal country," Mikayilova said.

Turkey and Azerbaijan, with the participation of the countries' air and ground forces, launched joint military drills in the wake of recent Armenian attacks on Azerbaijani border points.

The war exercises began on July 29, with Aug. 5 being the last day of ground engagements – including artillery, armored vehicles and mortars striking simulated targets – in the capital Baku and the exclave of Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan's autonomous region bordering Turkey. Air combat drills involving jets and helicopters continued in Baku, Nakhchivan, Ganja, Kurdamir and Yevlakh until Monday.

Mikayilova also underlined that Ankara had always supported Baku's "fair position" on resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh issue between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

"We are grateful to brotherly Turkey for the immediate support it demonstrated during the last attacks," she said.

"Turkey has many times stated that they regard the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as a domestic issue and that Ankara would never change its position on this problem."

Last month, Armenia attacked Azerbaijani troops in the northwestern Tovuz border region. As a result, at least 12 Azerbaijani soldiers, including a major general and a colonel, were killed and another four soldiers wounded. A 76-year-old Azerbaijani citizen also lost his life.

Azerbaijan accused Armenia of taking "provocative" actions, with Ankara warning Yerevan it would not hesitate to stand against any kind of attack on Azerbaijan.

Nagorno-Karabakh, an internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan, has been under illegal Armenian occupation since 1991.

International organizations, including the United Nations, have demanded the withdrawal of the occupational forces.

Relations between Turkey and Azerbaijan are seen as "exemplary worldwide" and are developing at a high level in almost every sphere, she said.

Unity between the two countries lays the groundwork for all regional cooperation formats, Mikayilova said, adding that this unity promotes regional peace and cooperation.

Following the recent skirmishes on the frontier, there is currently "a relative calm" on the border between Azerbaijan and Armenia, but overall, the situation remains "highly tense," she said.

The lawmaker highlighted that frequent armistice breaches on the line of contact were another "source of tension" showing how "fragile" the cease-fire agreement remained.

"So we feel a colossal threat to our western borders from the part of Armenia, and war could flare up any moment due to Armenia's unpredictable behavior and provocations."

The recent attacks on Azerbaijani positions in Tovuz were not random but had "precise aims," said Mikayilova.

Mikayilova stressed that the unresolved Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was a threat to regional security.

She said over the last quarter-century the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group had been "quite an ineffective platform" for resolving the conflict.

The OSCE Minsk Group, co-chaired by France, Russia and the United States, was formed in 1992 to find a peaceful solution to the conflict but to no avail.

"The OSCE Minsk Group failed to create an available mechanism or initiate any proposal to push the peace diplomacy from the deadlock. Organizing talks between the conflicting sides just for the sake of talks and making a declarative statement just for the sake of a statement could not change the status quo in the negotiation process," she said.

Mikayilova urged the group to impose "strict sanctions" on the aggressor country – Armenia – to fulfill its international obligations.

"The OSCE Minsk Group needs to distinguish an aggressor country from a country subjected to aggression."

CivilNet: The AGBU’s Work to Provide Relief to Beirut

Antranik Varosian
CIVILNET.AM

21:19

CivilNet’s Emilio Cricchio spoke to Ara Vassilian, the Armenian General Benevolent Union’s Director of Schools in Lebanon. 

AGBU has managed to raise 2 million dollars in only a few days with regards to their Lebanon relief fund, Vassilian discussed this and other topics related to the aftermath of the blast in Beirut.

The relief fund is also still open for donations on the website.

https://www.civilnet.am/news/2020/08/15/The-AGBU%E2%80%99s-Work-to-Provide-Relief-to-Beirut/392697

Armenia is in process of overcoming pandemic, says Prime Minister

Antranik Varosian

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 11:53, 14 August, 2020

YEREVAN, AUGUST 14, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan says it’s still too early to draw conclusions and make assessments on his government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and whether or not the authorities’ actions were sufficient.

“I think it is too early to have conclusions because unfortunately the pandemic is an evolving situation all over the world,” Pashinyan told BBC HARDtalk’s Stephen Sakur in an interview when asked about the Armenian response to the pandemic. 

He said that the Armenian government’s strategy on tackling the pandemic was designed appropriately for the country.

“Let’s make conclusion when globally the pandemic would be [defeated]”, he said.

Pashinyan said that Armenia is currently in the process of overcoming the pandemic.

Editing by Stepan Kocharyan

Forget Sykes-Picot. It’s the Treaty of Sèvres That Explains the Modern Middle East.

Antranik Varosian

BY NICK DANFORTH

 | AUGUST 10, 2015, 8:28 PM

Ninety-five years ago today, European diplomats gathered at a porcelain factory in the Paris suburb of Sèvres and signed a treaty to remake the Middle East from the ashes of the Ottoman empire. The plan collapsed so quickly we barely remember it anymore, but the short-lived Treaty of Sèvres, no less than the endlessly discussed Sykes-Picot agreement, had consequences that can still be seen today. We might do well to consider a few of them as the anniversary of this forgotten treaty quietly passes by.

In 1915, as British troops prepared to march on Istanbul by way of the Gallipoli peninsula, the government in London printed silk handkerchiefs heralding the end of the Ottoman empire. It was a bit premature (the battle of Gallipoli turned out to be one of the Ottomans’ few World War I victories) but by 1920 Britain’s confidence seemed justified: With allied troops occupying the Ottoman capital, representatives from the war’s victorious powers signed a treaty with the defeated Ottoman government that divided the empire’s lands into European spheres of influence. Sèvres internationalized Istanbul and the Bosphorus, while giving pieces of Anatolian territory to the Greeks, Kurds, Armenians, French, British, and Italians. Seeing how and why the first European plan for dividing up the Middle East failed, we can better understand the region’s present-day borders, as well as the contradictions of contemporary Kurdish nationalism and the political challenges facing modern Turkey.

Within a year of signing the Treaty of Sèvres, European powers began to suspect they had bitten off more than they could chew. Determined to resist foreign occupation, Ottoman officers like Mustafa Kemal Ataturk reorganized the remnants of the Ottoman army and, after several years of desperate fighting, drove out the foreign armies seeking to enforce the treaty’s terms. The result was Turkey as we recognize it today, whose new borders were officially established in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.

Sèvres has been largely forgotten in the West, but it has a potent legacy in Turkey, where it has helped fuel a form of nationalist paranoia some scholars have called the “Sèvres syndrome.” Sèvres certainly plays a role in Turkey’s sensitivity over Kurdish separatism, as well as the belief that the Armenian genocide — widely used by European diplomats to justify their plans for Anatolia in 1920 — was always an anti-Turkish conspiracy rather than a matter of historical truth. Moreover, Turkey’s foundational struggle with colonial occupation left its mark in a persistent form of anti-imperial nationalism, directed first against Britain, during the Cold War against Russia, and now, quite frequently, against the United States.

But the legacy of Sèvres extends well beyond Turkey, which is precisely why we should include this treaty alongside Sykes-Picot in our history of the Middle East. It will help us challenge the widespread notion that the region’s problems all began with Europeans drawing borders on a blank map.

There’s no doubt that Europeans were happy to create borders that conformed to their own interests whenever they could get away with it. But the failure of Sèvres proves that that sometimes they couldn’t. When European statesmen tried to redraw the map of Anatolia, their efforts were forcefully defeated. In the Middle East, by contrast, Europeans succeeded in imposing borders because they had the military power to prevail over the people resisting them. Had the Syrian nationalist Yusuf al-‘Azma, another mustachioed Ottoman army officer, replicated Ataturk’s military success and defeated the French at the Battle of Maysalun, European plans for the Levant would have gone the way of Sèvres.

Would different borders have made the Middle East more stable, or perhaps less prone to sectarian violence? Not necessarily. But looking at history through the lens of the Sèvres treaty suggests a deeper point about the cause-and-effect relationship between European-drawn borders and Middle Eastern instability: the regions that ended up with borders imposed by Europe tended to be those already too weak or disorganized to successfully resist colonial occupation. Turkey didn’t become wealthier and more democratic than Syria or Iraq because it had the good fortune to get the right borders. Rather, the factors that enabled Turkey to defy European plans and draw its own borders — including an army and economic infrastructure inherited from the Ottoman empire — were some of the same ones that enabled Turkey to build a strong, centralized, European-style nation-state.

Of course, plenty of Kurdish nationalists might claim that Turkey’s borders actually are wrong. Indeed, some cite Kurdish statelessness as a fatal flaw in the region’s post-Ottoman borders. But when European imperialists tried to create a Kurdish state at Sèvres, many Kurds fought alongside Ataturk to upend the treaty. It’s a reminder that political loyalties can and do transcend national identities in ways we would do well to realize today.

The Kurdish state envisioned in the Sèvres Treaty would, crucially, have been under British control. While this appealed to some Kurdish nationalists, others found this form of British-dominated “independence” problematic. So they joined up to fight with the Turkish national movement. Particularly among religious Kurds, continued Turkish or Ottoman rule seemed preferable to Christian colonization. Other Kurds, for more practical reasons, worried that once in charge the British would inevitably support recently dispossessed Armenians seeking to return to the region. Some subsequently regretted their decision when it became clear the state they had fought to create would be significantly more Turkish — and less religious — than anticipated. But others, under varying degrees of duress, chose instead to accept the identity the new state offered them.

Many Turkish nationalists remain frightened by the way their state was destroyed by Sèvres, while many Kurdish nationalists still imagine the state they might have achieved. At the same time, today’s Turkish government extolls the virtues of Ottoman tolerance and multiculturalism, while Kurdish separatist leader Abdullah Ocalan, apparently after reading the sociologist Benedict Anderson in prison, claims to have discovered that all nations are merely social constructs. The governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the pro-Kurdish HDP spent much of the last decade competing to convince Kurdish voters that a vote for their party was a vote for peace — competing, that is, over which party was capable of resolving Turkey’s long-simmering conflict by creating a more stable and inclusive state. In short, as many Americans still debate the “artificial” nature of European-made states in the Middle East, Turkey is fitfully transcending a century-long obsession with proving how “real” it is.

CivilNet: Armenia Proposes Establishing Specialized Anti-Corruption Courts

Antranik Varosian
CIVILNET.AM

6 August, 2020 11:22

By Mark Dovich

Armenia’s Ministry of Justice put forward a bill on August 3 that, if approved by the National Assembly, will establish two specialized anti-corruption courts within the country’s judicial system. The Justice Ministry has argued that the creation of separate courts for corruption cases will improve the efficiency, integrity, and level of expertise in the judiciary overall.

According to the text of the draft law, the first body is to function as an anti-corruption court with 25 judges, while the second body is to serve as an anti-corruption court of appeals with a minimum of 10 judges. The responsibilities of the judges sitting on the anti-corruption court are to be further divided, with 20 of the 25 judges hearing general corruption cases, while the remaining five hear cases submitted under the Law on Confiscation of Illegal Property, passed by the National Assembly in May.

The bill also envisages strict restrictions governing the appointment of judges to the proposed courts, with judicial candidates who have received any disciplinary action in the past five years barred from serving. The list of potential judges is to be drawn up by the Ministry of Justice while taking into account the opinions of members of Armenia’s Supreme Judicial Council and other legal or anti-corruption experts.

The Justice Ministry’s proposal represents the latest effort by the administration of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to tackle corruption in Armenia. Though anti-corruption served as a key motivator for organizers of the 2018 Velvet Revolution, which ultimately propelled Pashinyan to power, Armenia’s judiciary, still headed by judges appointed under the previous government, has handed down few corruption-related convictions since that time. According to Transparency International’s 2019 Corruption Perceptions Index, “conflicts of interests and non-transparent and unaccountable public operations remain impediments to ending corruption” in Armenia.

An increasing number of countries have created separate, specialized courts dedicated to hearing corruption-related cases. According to a study by the Norway-based U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Center, there are now more than 20 countries with functioning anti-corruption courts, many of which have been established just in the last decade.

If Armenia’s National Assembly passes the Justice Ministry’s draft law, Armenia will become only the second country in the post-Soviet space, after Ukraine, with a specialized anti-corruption court. Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court began operating in September 2019 and handed down its first sentence a month later.

Turkish press: Armenia’s choked economy too weak for prolonged occupation

Antranik Varosian
 OP-ED 
JUL 28, 2020 12:05 AM GMT+3

Over recent weeks, the world has started to wonder about the motives behind Armenia’s attack on its northern border with Azerbaijan, far away from the latter's Armenian-occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region. By escalating the situation on the state border with Azerbaijan, Armenia has posed a threat to regional security. By failing to involve the Collective Security Treaty Organization or Russia in the conflict, Yerevan has completely shaken up the situation.

The point is that Armenia's economy has been deprived of tourism revenues due to the pandemic and suffocated by declining exports of raw materials in the mining industry due to low prices and shrinking remittances.

Now that Armenia is descending into poverty, bankruptcy and collapse, it has been forced to obtain a standby loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to prevent further economic downturn, especially in order to close the budget deficit and meet external obligations.

In fact, this credit line is 100% of Armenia's $128 million special drawing rights (SDR) quota in the IMF. In other words, Armenia attracts the highest debt it can get. Armenia, which is one of the worst countries in the world in terms of COVID-19 infections, will have a fiscal deficit of 5% of gross domestic product (GDP) this year, while its debt burden looks set to reach 64.1% of GDP.

Instead of solving internal problems, Armenia is diverting internal dissatisfaction in another direction by provoking skirmishes on its border with Azerbaijan.

Armenia is carrying out military provocations against Azerbaijan to disrupt several of the latter's major oil, gas, transport and information technology projects going to Europe – and thus acting against the interests of European countries and the United States, the main shareholders of the IMF and the World Bank.

The land-based Middle Corridor from China to Europe crosses through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. This Middle Corridor is 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles) shorter than the Northern Corridor and takes one-third of the time as the sea route between China and Europe.

The Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia and Mediterranean region are all interested in the Middle Corridor, along with China and Europe. In this regard, the China-backed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) supports the Middle Corridor, too.

Imagine Armenia challenging the world by threatening one of the main corridors of Eurasia, all while using foreign loans, remittances and military aid. The Azerbaijani army repelled the threat to one of its main Eurasian corridors by putting the Armenian army in its place. This time, Armenia's foreign supporters didn't dare offer open support.

The main driver of economic growth in Armenia is consumption. Consider that the contribution of consumption to economic growth in Armenia is 11 times greater than the impact of fixed capital on economic growth and 88 times the impact of net exports on economic growth.

But where does consumption come from? Of course, remittances from abroad and loans to households support consumption. For example, last year alone, household loans in Armenia increased by 32% and remittances by 1.5%.

Consumption-based economic growth constantly makes the country's national security and economic security dependent on outsiders, weakens the economy's immunity, increases the volatility of the Armenian drama and creates inequality in society. Today, according to official figures, one in four citizens of Armenia lives below the poverty line.

The net migration rate in Armenia (the difference between immigrants and emigrants) is 5.6 per 1,000 people in the negative. This means that the number of emigrants from Armenia is 5.6 times more per 1,000 immigrants.

The age of emigrants from Armenia varies from 15 to 65. This shows that both young people and the elderly, that is, citizens of a broader age range, have fewer opportunities to live and work in Armenia.

Emigrants from Armenia are from both urban and rural areas. Another fact is that Armenian emigrants are predominantly women. According to a study by the Asian Development Bank, only Armenia differs from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries on this indicator – with a negative impact on the country's demographic growth.

In terms of the contribution of remittances from abroad to GDP, Armenia occupies the worst position in the world. Analyzing the statistics of the Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development (KNOMAD), we can see that in 2019, remittances from abroad accounted for 11.4% of the Armenian economy.

This places Armenia 153rd place in the world – only in a "better" position than 25 countries. The external shocks in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic only compound the hardships for Armenian migrants, whose remittances to Armenia have been falling sharply.

High levels of consumption in Armenia have reduced the share of savings in its GDP from 16.3% in 2017 to 11% last year. Strategic reserves in Armenia will fall below $2.2 billion this year, and according to the IMF forecast, it will never reach the level of 2019 until 2025.

Along with savings, the share of investment in GDP in Armenia decreased by 2.9% in 2017-2020 and was forecasted to decrease further this year. Armenia's current account deficit came to 8.2% of GDP, and the chronic nature of this deficit reduces economic security to the line "below the plinth." The devaluation of the drama to finance the current account deficit has been increasing poverty in Armenia.

Attracting foreign debt to finance the current account deficit contradicts the fiscal rules and debt strategy adopted by the country. It is not possible to finance the current account deficit by attracting foreign investment.

The prospects of foreign investment are weak in Armenia, where two of the four borders are closed due to Yerevan's aggressive policies, while the other two offer limited opportunities.

The main strategic areas of the country – rail, electricity, gas, mining, telecommunications, etc. – have long been held by monopolistic owners. The Armenian economy is a "saturated market" for foreign investment, and this really lessens its regard to investors.

This year it has been forecast that Armenia's financial account will deteriorate sharply against the background of the withdrawal of deposits of non-residents. Some $1 billion a year of Armenia's export revenues are products from the mining industry in the form of raw materials. The Nikol Pashinian government's launch of investigations in this area is intended to cause a shift in owners, which undermines investor confidence.

Other sectors earning foreign currency for the country are the export of agricultural products and gambling. Even the turnover created from gambling in Armenia exceeds the country's military budget.

Armenia's dependence on agricultural products is based on one market – the Russian market, which is still distant and has limited access, making it an obstacle to the sustainable development of this sector.

Armenia's economic development now appears to be beholden to the territory it occupies that is internationally recognized as belonging to Azerbaijan.

Armenia compromised its political, economic and military independence to the great powers and the diaspora in order to continue the occupation policy against Azerbaijan, which has no prospects.

Today, Azerbaijan is four times larger than Armenia in terms of population, three times larger in terms of territory, six times larger in terms of economy and 25 times larger in terms of strategic foreign exchange reserves.

According to the Global Fire Power rating, the Azerbaijani army ranks 64th in the world and the Armenian army 111th. Armenia falls in an even more desperate situation by occupying the internationally recognized territories of such a strong neighbor, Azerbaijan, and occasionally provoking it.

Armenia's recent provocations, the financial and economic security of which are severely under the threat, go against not only Azerbaijan but also the wider region.

In order to ensure peace and security in the heart of Eurasia, it is time to stop Armenian aggression and release Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region and other adjacent regions in accordance with the international law, as well as, U.N. Security Council resolutions.

*Executive director of the Center for Analysis of Economic Reforms and Communication of the Republic of Azerbaijan

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
*Executive director of the Center for Analysis of Economic Reforms and Communication of the Republic of Azerbaijan