The deadline suggestion for Armenia’s accession to the the Eurasian Union by July 1 has been formally adopted
On May 29, at the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council panel session in Astana, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev imposed a condition for Armenia’s accession to the Eurasian Union, addressing Serzh Sargsyan, “You likewise joined the World Trade Organization, there is a precedent,” and added that the presidents of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan have received the letter from the President of Azerbaijan, where it is emphasized that Armenia has joined the World Trade Organization on a condition that the provisions of the agreement will function only by the UN-recognized borders. Given Nazarbayev’s aforesaid observation, let’s try getting clarification from the RA Foreign Ministry. Particularly, we referred a question in writing whether Armenia has officially submitted its consent in writing to WTO when joining the World Trade Organization, if yes, provide a copy of that document. To date, we have not received any response from MFA to our inquiry. Former Prime Minister of Armenia, Hrant Bagratyan, recently, has made a remarkable entry on his Facebook page about this matter, noting, “…Nagorno-Karabakh, economically, is Armenia. When we enter the WTO, the matter was that since NKR’s political destiny was not yet decided, then until then (being decided) Artsakh should have conducted trade. Azerbaijan, do you open your ways for NKR to be engaged in a trade? The answer is no. Armenia, and what about you? The answer is yes. Thus, Armenia’s being engaged in a trade by the Customs laws is legal for NKR. This was what needed to be answered to Nazarbayev. This is what at least should be said now. Well, this was how the NKR issue was overcome when entering into the WTO. IMF is funding the AMD, which is also used in NKR. In 1994 February, Armenian received a loan of 24 million dollars from the World Bank when the war in Karabakh was still on. What Foreign Minister is next to the president that does not know all about this? In fact, Nazarbayev had given the opportunity to Aliyev to give a clear answer. And you?” On May 29, the leaders of the Eurasian Union founding countries and Armenia’s president agreed that in the next month they would agree, as the President has said, on the remaining two or three questions, and Armenia can sign the Eurasian Union accession treaty until July 1. During the panel session held on that day, the Armenian side had suggested agreeing on the remaining two or three issues in a few days, but the presidents of Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan proposed to give a period of one month to Armenia to agree on these issues. In other words, it was still clear in Astana that Armenia was to sign the Eurasian Union accession treaty until July 1, if it agrees with the condition put forward by the European Union founding member-country, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. The official website of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council, however, has already published No. 71 resolution, by which the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council, on the level of three Presidents, in collaboration with the three countries’ governments and the Government of Armenia, is defining the scheduled time-period for Armenia to join the Eurasian Union treaty by July 1. And interestingly, the resolution contains no reference about Nagorno-Karabakh, nor about the fact that the provisions of the Eurasian Economic Union agreement signed by the leaders of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan will be effective for Armenia on this or that condition. It’s hard to say whether the RA authorities have already achieved agreement with the Eurasian trio, or the trio will continue to be consistent with processing the letter by the president of Azerbaijan, and, however, will extort some written agreement from Armenia about the topic of customs checkpoints between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. As we had reported earlier, the the political clauses have been removed from the text of the Eurasian Economic Union Treaty, at the request of the Kazakh side. Kazakh Deputy Foreign Minister, Samat Ordabayev, noted that the entire structure of the Eurasian Economic Union Treaty is the economic partnership. “Due to the consistent position of the very Kazakhstan, the following issues were removed from the agreement, such as common citizenship, foreign policy, inter-parliamentary cooperation, passport-visa system, general maintenance of borders, export control, and so on. In addition to institutional section and three provision of the agreement, the parties agreed to an additional two documents, one of which relates to international activities, and the second relates to the procedures of preparing and signing of international agreements with third countries”. The website of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council has not yet published the aforesaid two additional documents, but according to the information of “Aravot”, they refer to consideration of the interests by the member countries when preparing and signing agreements on foreign policy sector.
EMMA GABRIELYAN
