“Armenia has made itself a Russia voluntarily”
The reasons of former PM Tigran Sargsyan’s resignation are not external factors. Armen Kharazyan, expert of international relations and former deputy Ambassador of Armenia to the United States, who resides in Washington now, shared this opinion with 168 Zham and added the United States was not involved in replacing Armenian Prime-Ministers and would not need it either.
“Perhaps there are opinions in Armenia that there were factors from Russia. I do not know exactly but I have never had the feeling that Tigran Sargsyan, as the Armenian Prime-Minister has ever had pro-Western attitudes. During his office Armenia continued following the path of the president’s policy. I do not think Tigran Sargsyan had a separate political direction in his policy. For Russia either I do not see the point of replacing a Prime-Minister in Armenia,” said A. Kharazyan.
He believes the problem is internal and consists of 3 components such as internal issues between the government participants, the government’s response, and reduced level of certain processes and rating. A. Kharazyan thinks that the PM as a person has been very open to various critics in the recent times, which mostly concerned his offshore business rumors and corruption deals, which harmed his image. “Without remote conclusions whether he was really involved in such deals or no, the public discussions of such issues in such a specific context is not good for any politician at all,” said Kharazyan.
A. Kharazyan says that Tigran Sargsyan’s case was unprecedented in Armenia as he was in office for six years. He says there are no reasons to consider this recent change a U-turn in Armenia’s policy.
“Yes, the replacement of Prime-Ministers brings to replacements of other people too but I do not think that it will change Armenia’s economic policy direction. I do not think the Prime-Minister was a supporter of European integration. I have worked with him but did not have that feeling. In his speech in different occasions he showed loyalty to European values, and he traveled with pleasure but what he was doing was not consistent with it. I do not see any action during his office that would make us believe that he was pro-European and was supporting the European integration. It is the vice versa; he was very sensitive to messages from Moscow, and often he was working under the influence of such messages. Always there was a great gap between his words and actions,” said A. Kharazyan.
To our replica that recently Tigran Sargsyan spoke about the urge of signing the political segment of the Association Agreement in Brussels A. Kharazyan responded, “But did we sign? Of course not. The matter of signing the political segment grew only in light of the events of Ukraine. It will perhaps be offered to Ukraine and to those other countries, which had so many deprivations. Armenia is not ready for this kind of pressure from Russia and doesn’t have the same determination as Ukraine and other states.” He also noted that Armenia doesn’t have any weight in the international arena. Moldova that is not even engaged in lobbying in the US has more support. “Here they don’t even remember Armenia. But Armenia was not given to Russia by the west. Armenia voluntarily gave itself to Russia.”
By GayaneKhachatryan
