NO THREATS TO THE COOPERATION
Vardan Grigoryan
Hayots Ashkhar Daily
23 Oct 2008
Armenia
Russian President D. Medvedev’s two-day visit to Yerevan became the
successive manifestation of the Armenian-Russian leaders’ sincere
willingness of maintaining and extending the serious achievements in
both countries’ relations.
It is well-known that beginning the early 1990’s, the steady
progressive development of the Armenian-Russian relations continued,
irrespective of the shift of government in both states. Moreover,
the top figures of the two countries always played an important
role in the extension of those relations. Therefore, with the new
negotiations, Russian and Armenian new Presidents D. Medvedev and
S. Sargsyan reiterated their willingness to consistently extend the
Armenian-Russian ties, having inherited the rich traditions of the
mutual cooperation between the two states.
This is a strictly important and fundamental issue because before the
Russian President’s recent visit so many contradictory and conflicting
opinions were expressed in our reality in this connection that the
uninformed people were already under the impression that there had
started a deep crisis in the Armenian-Russian relations.
The most important result, as mentioned by the Russian President after
the talks, was "the mutual desire to develop the strategic partnership"
between Armenia and Russia.
And the evidence of such summary conclusion was the thorough discussion
of the whole palette of the bilateral relations. The Russian side
expressed special satisfaction with the strictly effective cooperation
between the two countries within the frameworks of the CIS and its
Collective Security Treaty and underlined Moscow’s serious willingness
to further extend such cooperation, especially in the frames of the
Collective Security Treaty Organization.
The next important issue discussed during the negotiations concerned
the further extension of the economic cooperation. The continuous
comparisons of the volumes of the Armenian-Russian political-military
cooperation have already led to a situation in which the Russian
investments and even the bilateral good circulation has surpassed or
come close to the boundary of one billion dollars, which is quite an
impressive sum for a small country like Armenia.
The broad cooperation between the two countries in the spheres of
education and culture is also obvious. In this respect, the Armenian
President attached a special importance to the activity of the
Armenian-Russian (Slavonic) University and the transmission of the
Russian "Kultura" (culture) TV Channel in Armenia.
During the talks held in Yerevan, both countries’ Presidents had
a thorough discussion over the various aspects of the situation
in the South Caucasus following the recent Russian-Georgian armed
conflict and, in that context, paid attention to the prospects of
the settlement of Karabakh issue. Undoubtedly, the chief intrigue of
the negotiations and the main motive of looking for a "black cat" in
the Armenian-Russian bilateral relations were "hidden" here. However,
what we heard from the Presidents was just two fundamental conclusions
and one proposal.
The first was the Armenian President’s special willingness to proceed
with the talks in the frameworks of the OSCE Minsk Group (based on
the Madrid principles) and the second was the RF President’s proposal
addressed to the Armenian and Azeri Presidents for organizing a
trilateral meeting in Moscow. A question arises as to what happened to
the ominous predictions heard in our reality prior to the talks. We
believe the issue should be touched upon by the authors of such
predictions. First of all, we mean L. Ter-Petrosyan.
The fact that Armenia attaches importance to the issue of proceeding
with the talks in the frameworks of the OSCE Minsk Group testifies
to our country’s unwillingness to make unilateral concessions to
Azerbaijan. As to Russia’s current initiative, it is also advantageous
to Armenia, first of all as a counterbalance to the trilateral meeting
recently organized by Turkey with the involvement of the Azeri,
Turkish and Armenian Foreign Ministers.
All the rest are simple fairytales and ordinary gossips that have
emerged for a very simple reason. The real "battle" over the Karabakh
issue is, as a matter of fact, taking place between Russia and the
United States vs. Armenia and Azerbaijan. Each side is trying to
impose its separate formula upon the parties. This increases Armenia
and Azerbaijan’s chances of making maneuvers between them because the
Minsk Group never coordinates everything in advance. What happens
is just the contrary: two of its key members simply "torpedo" each
another’s initiatives.
Therefore, there is no threat to the Armenian-Russian strategic
cooperation.
As to the Karabakh issue, a lot of things are expected to happen in
that regard.