According to Stepan Safaryan, Azerbaijan no longer is able to “curb” Azerbaijan
“First of all it should be beneficial for Russia for one of its allies can be a bridge with NATO. Indeed, Armenia has no right to vote in NATO, nor a weight, but since Armenia’s involvement in NATO programs is rather appreciated, it may play quite a role in the future, if, of course, necessary,” said Head of the Armenian Institute for International and Security Affairs, also political analyst, Stepan Safaryan, in the conversation with “Aravot”.
Note that yesterday, the President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, attended the NATO summit in Newport city, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in the framework of which the NATO member and Afghanistan International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission participating partner countries’ state and government leaders’ meeting was held. Serzh Sargsyan’s participation in the NATO summit was remarkable first because it is the first time since 2008 that he takes part in such a high-level summit of the alliance.
In the previous three summits, the highest officials, who were presenting Yerevan, were the Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan and Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan in 2009 in Strasbourg-Kehl, in 2010 in Lisbon and in 2012 in Chicago. In these summits, declarations were adopted that NATO shall respect Azerbaijan’s, Georgia’s, and Moldova’s territorial integrity. Nothing was mention in the documents about the right to self-determination. Official Yerevan has expressed its resentment on this.
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To the question of Aravot about what the reason was that President Serzh Sargsyan ignored the previous resentments, Stepan Safaryan responded, “I assume that Armenia is aware that this time the NATO summit would not offer such a surprise, nor especially it would be offered to spoiled backdrop relations between Azerbaijan and the West. It seems to me that Serzh Sargsyan is confident that there are no wordings in the final document of the summit to be worried about, and at least the balance is maintained. But if this is not the case, if Armenia could not determine it, and the president had gone, then it becomes a theme of another talk”.
Serzh Sargsyan’s participation in the NATO summit, according to our interlocutor, enables also to ensure the meeting with the MG co-chairs by camouflage. Yesterday, in the evening, the tripartite meeting of the US Secretary of State John Kerry, Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Serzh Sargsyan and Ilham Aliyev respectively, was held. In the future, it is also planned a tripartite meeting of the Presidents of France, Armenia and Azerbaijan, which was the initiative of the president of France still in spring in Yerevan. “Since this is an issue referring to the security of Armenia, Armenia absolutely has bases to present legitimate substantiations in case of any question by Russia. RF seem to be unable to curb Azerbaijan, and Armenia solely should take steps aimed at it. Armenia should use all opportunities to make the preservation of the ceasefire regime more precise,” said Stepan Safaryan.
In the CSTO, Armenia’s ally Russia, especially in recent period, is in escalating contradictions with leading countries of NATO. A few months ago, even the CSTO Secretary General, Nikolay Bordyuzha, announced that CSTO intends to cease the attempts to establish a dialogue with NATO. And yesterday, prior to the beginning of the summit, NATO Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said that “Russia has attack on Ukraine” and keeps destabilizing the situation in eastern Ukraine. Referring to the calls for establishing a ceasefire voiced by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, the NATO Secretary General said that it is not important what Russia says on Ukraine but what it does. In the interview with journalists, the NATO Secretary General state about adopting a “preparedness action plan”. This assumes deployment of armed forces of the Alliance by rotation manner in the member states located in eastern borders of NATO.
Stepan Safaryan thinks that Armenia need to make its contribution so that impermissibility to resolve the conflicts militarily are clearly defined in the resolution of the summit. “There are factors that Armenia can use to reinforce the current fragile peace, to make Azerbaijan more restrained and to bring Azerbaijan to a more accountable arena with the help of international role-players and instruments. In this context, participation in the summit at the presidential level is justified, regardless of Russia’s sentiment to it.”
In fact, in his speech at the summit, according to the information conveyed by the Presidential Press Service, Serzh Sargsyan had said that those in Armenia appreciate the value of both peace and security for which our country struggle for both almost every day. “Tomorrow here, in this same hall, a document will be adopted that will be related to the security of my people and peace in our region. There are two options. Either it will adopt the language of the OSCE Minsk Group, which is the only specialized international structure dealing with the Nagorno-Karabakh problem, a language that was proposed and supported by the Co-Chair countries that are represented here by France and the United States of America, or upon the lobbying of another member State it will pass again with an aim to save the face of our tyrant neighbor vis-a-vis his own people. Believe me it will not lead to any positive results. Either the common sense and the strive for peace will have the upper hand, or the silent encouragement of xenophobia will go deepening, the war rhetoric and the deadly provocations, so easily provoked by Azerbaijan, which does not care about its soldiers’ lives and gets enthusiastic with papers like that, will continue ahead,” concluded Serzh Sargsyan.
Nelly GRIGORYAN
