Armenian Court Gives Green Light For Iraq Deployment
By Anna Saghabalian 09/12/2004 09:02
Radio Free Europe, Czech Rep
Dec 9 2004
Armenia’s Constitutional Court gave the government the green light
on Wednesday to send Armenian non-combat troops to Iraq, a deployment
which Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisian claimed will spare the country
international isolation.
The ruling paved the way for a debate on the issue in parliament
dominated by President Robert Kocharian’s loyalists. Some of them
have serious misgivings about the wisdom of the deployment, sharing
concerns about the security of Iraq’s Armenian community.
But Sarkisian brushed aside those concerns as he addressed the panel
of nine judges. “Armenia could not have stayed isolated from regional
developments,” he said. “Hence, the Armenian authorities’ decision
to participate in the process of Iraq’s stabilization.”
Sarkisian warned that Armenia’s failure to follow neighboring
Azerbaijan’s and Georgia’s example and join the U.S.-led “coalition
of the willing” in Iraq “could create certain obstacles to a further
expansion of Armenia’s cooperation in the international arena.” He
did not elaborate.
The one-day court hearing centered on an agreement between Poland and
18 other countries that have troops in a Polish-led multinational
division controlling south-central Iraq. Kocharian promised to
place about 50 Armenian military doctors, sappers and truck drivers
under Polish command during a visit to Warsaw last September. The
Constitutional Court found that the agreement does not run counter
to the Armenian constitution.
Sarkisian said Yerevan will sign up to the document on the condition
that the Armenian military personnel take part only in “defensive
and humanitarian activities” and avoid joint actions with the bigger
Azerbaijani contingent. “Performance of joint tasks with the contingent
of Azerbaijani armed forces stationed in Iraq will not be acceptable,”
he said.
Speaking to reporters afterward, the powerful defense chief was
confident that the National Assembly will endorse the deployment
plans welcomed by the United States. “I think that the overwhelming
majority of our parliamentarians care about Armenia’s future and will
not make emotional decisions,” he said.
Critics have been warning that an estimated 25,000 Iraqi citizens of
Armenian descent could face retaliatory attacks from Iraqi insurgents
once Armenia becomes part of the U.S.-led occupation force. The
insurgents have routinely kidnapped and killed citizens of countries
cooperating with it.
Leaders of the Iraqi Armenians have themselves exhorted Kocharian
not to send any servicemen. Underscoring their fears was Tuesday’s
bombing of Armenian and Chaldean churches in the northern Iraqi city
of Mosul. News reports said gunmen burst in and set off explosions
inside the buildings, damaging them but hurting no one.
The Armenian Apostolic Church condemned the violence, with Catholicos
Garegin II warning of a “danger to the centuries-old co-existence
of the Christian and Islamic peoples” of Iraq. Garegin urged Iraqi
spiritual leaders to prevent the continuing unrest in the country
from degenerating into a religious conflict.
The alarm was echoed Pope John Paul II on Wednesday. “I express
my spiritual closeness to the faithful, shocked by the attacks,”
John Paul said, speaking from his apartment window above St. Peter’s
Square on the Roman Catholic feast of the Immaculate Conception.
In Yerevan, meanwhile, one of the Constitutional Court judges, Kim
Balayan, wondered if the planned deployment could put the lives of
Iraqi Armenians at greater risk. Sarkisian countered that they will
be insecure regardless of Armenian military presence in Iraq.