“There is no country in the region, the foreign policy of which is in such a stupid condition as that of Armenia. The masterpiece was the Armenia-Turkey protocols,” Gurgen Yeghiazaryan, a member of the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party (SDHP), said this when we reminded him of the following provision in Serzh Sargsyan’s election program, “The foreign policy of our country should become more active and proactive, ensuring Armenia’s influential participation in international and, particularly, regional processes.”
Then, assessing the work done in foreign policy in the past five years, G. Yeghiazaryan continued: “No point in Serzh Sargsyan’s election program has been implemented.”
Continuing the conversation, G. Yeghiazaryan reminded that Tigran Sargsyan, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia, had presented the “sports” diplomacy between Armenia and Turkey to the public as a positive step, which “is a disgrace from A to Z.” In his opinion, “it is not a thing to boast about, but was one of the disgraceful pages of the Armenian diplomacy.”
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With regard to what had been said, our interlocutor told a story: “Lately Erdoğan has made a disgraceful statement. He told Aliyev with a grin that he didn’t envy him that he often met with the Armenian President. I am with the opposition, but I felt bad about that. You may call it Football, Ping Pong, Basketball Diplomacy…, if you like. This is the result of such jokes with Turks. Let them use their brain and think whether it was worth taking Mount Ararat off our sportsmen’s breasts during the Football match after all this. Let them use their brain and see that they are absolutely stupid.”
Taking into account the drawbacks in the foreign policy, Ashot Yengoyan, the head of the history and theory of political science department, International Relations Faculty, nonetheless, sees progress and states: “Saying proactive policy, we shouldn’t think only of signals and statements made by the Foreign Ministry. The goal of our foreign policy was that Armenia should be actively involved in the international integration processes. In that regard, we certainly were proactive, but in many cases, we didn’t play first fiddle. Even if we compare it with Azerbaijan’s foreign policy and consider only the Karabakh issue, we could be more proactive than we are. However, from the perspective of the overall foreign policy, we are proactive – for example, the principles of not lagging behind in the Eurasian processes, European integration, all that is as it was.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
