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Are foreign diplomats bad?

September 23,2011 00:00

Former president of Armenia Robert Kocharyan stated that the worst  are the British, then the Americans and the French a bit.

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One of diplomatic cables concerning Armenia revealed by WikiLeaks, dated May 11, 2009, puts forward details of the meeting between Marie Yovanovitch, the US Ambassador to Armenia, and Robert Kocharyan, the second president of the Republic of Armenia. According to the message, the US ambassador met with former president Robert Kocharyan on May 8 to make clear his viewpoint on the joint Armenian-Turkish statement to normalize relations and his plans concerning the election of the Yerevan Council, which would, according to the ambassador, decide the capital’s next mayor, ought to be held on May 31 2009.
“When the ambassador asked about the upcoming mayoral election, Kocharyan claimed that ‘the diplomatic corps should not politicize it.’ Kocharyan said that ‘they (foreign diplomats) always use those to pressure Armenia — it was that way as long as I was president.’ The ambassador answered that the United States does not interfere in the Armenian elections, but will closely watch the upcoming election, considering the fact that it will refer to the half of the Armenian population”, reads the ambassador’s note.
“Kocharyan griped that ‘the problem in small countries like ours is that the pressure always comes from the outside — from either Moscow, Brussels, or Washington.’  ‘You deform our political process in the pursuit of your interests,’ Kocharyan declared, ‘by encouraging the opposition to politicize our elections so that they become an instrument for outsiders to pressure Armenia.’ Former president Kocharyan also said, that he always thought that the US embassy had become a party during our elections.  “He grumbled that during elections, ‘the worst are the British (because of their history of imperialism), then the Americans, and sometimes the French — the opposition uses all of you, which complicates the situation’.” The US Ambassador, certainly, “strongly disagreed” with the former president’s observation and as Yovanovitch’s message reads, “affirmed that the United States does not take any side in any election”, however, she said that “the United States would share its opinion with others on its observations of the upcoming election.”
When asked whether he was going to get involved in the May 31 election, “the former president said ‘he would not because he is sure the Republican Party and Prosperous Armenia will win.’ He added that ‘if I thought they could lose, then I would get involved.’ Kocharyan said he disagreed with the ruling coalition’s decision to contest the elections as separate parties, asserting that he would have gotten them to present one unified candidate to represent the entire coalition. Kocharian said he also disapproved of the candidate whom the Republican Party had chosen to top their list (the newly appointed mayor, Gagik Beglaryan). Kocharyan lastly assured the Ambassador that although the opposition seeks to politicize the election, there will not be a replay of the March1 events from 2008.”
By the way, if we take into account that before the March 1 events, on February 28, 2008, former president of Armenia Kocharyan tried to find out the participation of the US Embassy in the opposition actions at a meeting with former Chargé d\’affaires of the US Joseph Pennington, it will be clear that this notion or concerns had become his idée fixe. The thing is Kocharyan expressed his concerns at a meeting with Pennington too and clearly hinted that he wanted to know whether the US Embassy supported the opposition in the opposition-establishment dispute, he asked whether the embassy actively negotiated or directed Ter-Petrossian’s campaign. The American diplomat, according to WIkiLeaks, in the report sent to the Department of State at the time wrote that Kocharyan stated during a conversation with him that he did not think, but knew that “Ter-Petrossian’s staff and strategists speak of asking for an advice from the US Embassy during their internal conversations.” After getting a negative answer Kocharyan, however, warned the diplomat that “the government will be watching them.”

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