“Firstly, there should be political will. There is an option—regime change, and new authorities which declare fight against corruption as their chief purpose, not always keep their promises after coming to power. The other option: current authorities realize that this shouldn’t last long, and it would be preferable to have pressure from the bottom, and realizing seriousness and complexity of the situation, and that there is threat to state’s existence, they try to change something.”
“I think, this also speaks of the fact that both the USA and Russia don’t perceive the situation, existent in NKR conflict zone, as a situation leading to dangerous wide-scale activities , on the other hand, the fact that the USA and Russia may come to an accord in solving serious issues, will be positively reflected on Minsk group work, and there is no need to say something new. Russia, the USA and France will work in a manner they have worked for decades, it’s another thing, that one of the parties doesn’t want to take a step back, and without it we won’t record any serious change in Artsakh issue. “
Upon rough calculations, goods costing about USD 2 million are daily being imported to Armenia. And this means, suspension lasting for days, and, moreover, for weeks, may seriously impact on exchange rate demand and appreciate Armenian dram.
OSCE co-chairs have varying approach regarding Karabakh issue, each of them is lead by its own interest, and, accordingly, as these interests aren’t in line, no result will be recorded. Currently the US has its own interest that the situation temporarily remained unchanged, maybe till the end of election campaign and etc., after which they’ll decide what to do. And Russia has its interests, maybe it doesn’t intend to fix on existent situation with Azerbaijan, especially when Azerbaijan purchases large volumes of weaponry, and there are business interests there, i.e. everyone has its interests, it’s quite a normal phenomenon.
“Everything characterizing our nations, are closely linked and not accidentally, we live next to each other for thousands of years. This is a liaison based on mutual respect and checked with time.”
“Today we touched upon how we may make use of those processes for our cooperation and joint projects. During the meeting, as the Minister stated, we have discussed a wide circle of issues existent in the agenda of bilateral relations and we touched upon perspectives for our relations. We spoke of activation of consultations not only on level of Ministers, but that of departments. It’ll be a great honor for me, and I’m ready to host Mr. Nalbandyan at any time preferable for him. Our purpose is implementation of high-level visits for developing cooperation between the two nations,” he stressed.
““Armenia” has obtained a certificate by the Ministry of Economy, which means, it may already launch trade transfers,” Chobanyan said.
Armenia has produced Eurobonds, and this shift will leave its trail if we try to reproduce them, and we will mandatorily produce them to clear off the previous one. For instance, “Mudis” states that indicator of Armenia’s loan management is rather high, however, regarding budget deficit it’s stated that it increases our risks. And budget deficit isn’t a loan management, it’s management of our expenditures and incomes, and there are some problems here. We succeeded this year to confirm the budget a bit lower than previous year, we restrained budget appetite, but it wasn’t enough.
Also due to the reason, that Armenia has quiet borders with Iran and Georgia, these countries have no connection to radical Islamism, i.e. with Sunnis, as Iran is a Shia state against the Islamic State. There is an issue with Turkey and Azerbaijan, however, I don’t think at the moment Turkey may make use of radical Islamists against Armenia, and even Azerbaijan, as for radical Islamists Turkey and Azerbaijan are not upright and pure Muslim states, therefore, if all these enlarges in the region, Azerbaijan and Turkey will be the first to suffer, rather than Armenia.
Interview with Jan van Bilsen, IFC Regional Manager for the South Caucasus