Tehran has a long history of influencing the course of the world. But if Tehran was more of a meeting place in 1943, today it has an influential voice.
With his visit to Tehran and the announcement of the most important agendas, the President of Russia emphasized and deliberately raised Tehran’s role in regional and larger-scale issues. The Putin-Erdogan meeting in Tehran is also an indicator of the increasing role of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Immediately after the meeting of the three major powers, the Iranian Foreign Ministry announced the preparation of a 3-3 format meeting in Tehran.
At some point, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan should be involved in the process of decisions made about them. In Tehran in 1943, there were no such formalities, and the destinies of small states and peoples were decided without excessive politeness. Now, in any case, it is the 21st century.
Putin’s speech after Tehran
Immediately after the closed-door meeting in Tehran, the Russian President gave a public speech to the Russian audience at the “Strong Ideas for New Times” forum. It was an extremely interesting format. Two of the ideas voiced were key.
- A new era is beginning in world history
- Only sovereign states are capable of development and growth dynamics.
The new Caucasian architecture and us
Immediately after the war, it was clear that the new architecture of the South Caucasus had begun, for which everyone was preparing in one way or another. Apart from Armenia.
Our assessments of ourselves were wrong and are still wrong. Armenia is not the weakest, not the most vulnerable, not the most hopeless. Armenia directly the most unprepared is. We need “strong /new/ ideas for new times”. And we do not develop those ideas. If the Russians consider it important for them, it is simply vital for us.
Power appears only in declarative formulations that are understandable to it, nothing else. And in practice, his steps mean only the fulfillment of Azerbaijan’s conditions and childish notions of “being good” with Turkey. The anti-establishment system contrasts this with primitive, yet declarative anti-Turkey with the outdated formulations “Armenia without Turks” and “we are against the lifting of the blockade”.
Why it turned out like this is difficult to say. It shouldn’t have been that way, because there was the necessary resource to form a solid alternative.
The Russian ambassador is more than an ambassador
The security of Armenia and Artsakh is currently ensured by Russia, its army is physically standing at the border, and its political weight is stopping the new Azerbaijani-Turkish aggression. This, at this moment, what will happen later is very difficult to calculate.
It is unbelievable, but under these conditions, anti-Russian sentiments are developing in Armenia against the background of general national and state decline. It is obvious that serious work is being done in that direction.
When the physical security of your state is ensured by Russia, and anti-Russian sentiments are growing inside your country, and unhindered activities are taking place in that direction, these are the signs of a great disaster. Both the conscious circles inside and Russia itself have something to do here.
A simple example. the imprisonments of pro-Russian activists pass under deep Russian indifference. This leads to the decline of Russia’s authority within the Armenian society. After March 1, Western ambassadors were busy with judicial processes, showing and organizing all kinds of support to pro-Western activists, even changing articles of the criminal code.
There is an impression that Russia still does not have “new ideas for new times” on such issues and cannot find the right approaches to adequate work. Paraphrasing the well-known poetic line, “The ambassador of Russia is more than an ambassador.” Otherwise, the Turkish ambassador, who does not yet exist, becomes more influential.
In the face of common danger
There is a serious doubt that as a result of the meetings in Tehran, the situation (on our part) has not been relieved, and the developments are still not clear. Today, our state is in a state of destruction and has a very high possibility of turning into a substantive and military Syria. The surprise visits of the special services of the superpowers to Yerevan, Aliyev’s toughening threats, the tension with Iran and the near-war between Russia and the West indicate that a new development is possible at any moment, and Armenia is facing a visible danger.
This idea of common danger within the country must be at the core of our actions. And now Armenia needs “new ideas for new times”.
And both the government, Nikol (there is a certain difference between these two), and the non-government system have the need to follow up and undergo noticeable changes. This is what the national and state interest demands. At the barricades, revisions are needed: wording, rhetoric, tactics, etc. As a first step to realizing the common danger, the government should release all political prisoners, stop all prosecutions, stop all political trials, and the opposition should give up the formulation of personal threats and insults. These two simple steps will ease the inner tension.
It will already create an opportunity for the next levels of communication.
Armenian points of view should be formulated in new times. If these views are not formulated on the basis of pragmatism and national dignity, it will be impossible to present them to the big players, and even more so, it will be impossible to unite one’s own people around the idea of defending them. We need to develop a solid package of economic, communication, military, political issues for close cooperation with Russia and Iran. With concrete proposals, concrete solutions. There are many interesting ideas that Armenia can develop.
If it is necessary to work together in the National Assembly for this, then it is necessary to work. If new elections are needed, then they should be held, if a new government is needed, then it should be, if some new format for quality work and results is needed, then it should be, if it is necessary to unite the efforts of capable people outside the government and the platform, then it should be. We need a unified domestic project. It is necessary to stop the internal process with the worldview of “the son of a boy”. This is not a game, this is the question of the existence of our state, a physical threat to our families, to all of us.
If we look at ourselves for a minute from the window of Tehran, Armenia has this picture. the government with its incomprehensible behavior, the anti-government with its one-sided anti-Turkishness, and an exceptionally indifferent society.
Today’s situation is a state abnormality, which leads us to expected-surprise war or loss. In the conditions of the process of new architecture in the South Caucasus, it is not possible to exclude the state from real processes and act either exclusively with a white flag or with outdated ideas. This will immediately raise the question of the expediency of the existence of that state among major players.
Vahe Hovhannisyan
Alternative projects group