A few days ago, in the exclusive interview with “Aravot”, the Advisor to the President of Russia Sergei Glazyev provided very interesting comments regarding Armenia’s joining the Customs Union. If we believe what the Russian high-ranking officials say, the President of Armenia made his statement in Moscow not under pressure of Russia but the European Union. Opening some brackets, Mr. Glazyev even reserved the right to give advice to the Prime Minister of Armenia. It seemed that the competent authorities of Armenia were to give a “fitting rebuff” to Russian officials for its adopted stance. But, it turns out that our, particularly the representative of structures negotiating with the European Union for four years prefer the policy of an ostrich. Since given agencies ignored the thoughts expressed by Sergey Glazyev in our newspapers, “Aravot” asked relevant questions.
“I have a great respect to the Prime Minister of Armenia, but I would advise him to carefully read the agreement that he wanted to sign with the EU”, said the former executive secretary of the Customs Union, Advisor to the President of Russia Sergei Glazyev in the interview with “Aravot” and continued, “Should the Prime Minister of Armenia carefully read what he was going to grant to Brussels by refusing from Armenia’s sovereignty and making it secondary to trade-economic relations, I think he would have reviewed his approaches.”
‘Aravot’ asked the spokesman of the Prime Minister of Armenia whether the Prime Minister of Armenia is going to take the advice of the Advisor to the President of Russia. We were also interested whether Mr. Glazyev’s statements are true that the officials conducting negotiations with Europe were even unaware of the provisions of the Association Agreement.
In the same interview, Mr. Glazyev clearly mentioned that Armenia was offered to become the “EU’s carriage,” and that it was not the RF but the EU that has pushed Armenia to make a decision on joining the Customs Union, and in order to preserve the independence and balanced relationship with Russia, according to the Russian official, Serzh Sargsyan was compelled to make respective political decision under this pressure. It turns out that the RF had rescued Armenia from the clutches of Europe. Whether it is true, whether the EU was suggesting Armenia to become its carriage, this was the next question of “Aravot” addressed to the Prime Minister. We were also curious about what was changed after President Sargsyan’s statement in Moscow that the Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan has changed his approaches in 180 degrees. In particular, a few days ago, when leaving for Moscow, in his interview with Public TV on board the plane, Tigran Sargsyan detailed five-point arguments, which, according to the Prime Minister, became the reason for Armenia’s decision to join the Customs Union. Interestingly, before President Sargsyan’s statement in Moscow, hasn’t the Prime Minister analyzed the aspect, didn’t he know about these needs that in his public speeches he was excluding Armenia’s joining the Customs Union, at least by reasoning the absence of a common border.
During the phone conversation, the Prime Minister’s press secretary said to “Aravot” that he was not going to answer our questions. The questions of the same contend addressed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Economy also remained unanswered. To remind that these ministerial officials were conducting the negotiations to establish the EU Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area agreements for four years.
One can draw two conclusions from this, either Russian official’s statements correspond to reality, or our people prefer the posture of an ostrich to the human image.
Nelly GRIGORYAN
