A set of ambassadors accredited in Armenia, including those of the US, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, Norway, and the EU, made an appeal, in which they criticized the prosecution of the Civilitas Foundation and called for stopping it. www.aravot.am inquired of Vladimir Karapetyan, a member of the Armenian National Congress (ANC) and a former spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, what assessment he would give to the fact that ambassadors tried to interfere into an issue of internal political life of the Republic of Armenia. Mr. Karapetyan stated in response: “Ambassadors usually act in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 and within the limits permitted by the receiving state’s government. Unless our government has enough prestige and dignity to respond after such statements, i.e. to show the limits, within which they could act, ambassadors will take the liberty of making such statements. If we had had a foreign ministry with dignity, we would have responded to such statements immediately and wouldn’t have left it without a respective response.” Mr. Karapetyan also informed that he shared the opinion of the ambassadors expressed in the statement and went into detail: “I agree with the ambassadors that the persecution of Vartan Oskanian and Civilitas should be stopped. I think that these persecutions of V. Oskanian are completely political.” Arman Navasardyan, a former Armenian ambassador to Lebanon, said during a conversation with us regarding the same issue: “This is exceptionally internal business of the country. Although you know about my liking for Vartan Oskanian, and I have given my assessment, which is not in favor of the decisions made regarding him, but I assess the phenomenon negatively just from the diplomatic perspective. This is a yet another case of interference, poking nose into the country’s internal business, which is not right and commendable. Suppose Armenia, as a subject of the international law, interferes into their internal life, how will the American Ambassador who talks like that perceive that? In diplomacy, everything is mutual. If you do something to me, I should have a right to do the same thing to you. If I cannot do that, it is asymmetry of international relations. If we had a possibility to take the liberty of doing the same thing to those same countries whose ambassadors made the statement, it would be understandable somehow. Although from the perspective of international law and in accordance with the Vienna Convention, it is not a commendable demarche. It is coercive policy too, as far as the US is concerned. If it takes the liberty of saying such a thing, it testifies to the fact that it wants to show that it is dominant over us in the international domain. It is a coercive action, muscle-flexing, and ambitions of a large state. If the US hadn’t set the tone, I don’t think Poland would have taken the liberty of doing that.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
