South Caucasus expert Thomas de Waal: a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment, Washington, comments on the latest incidents on the Armenian-Azerbaijani front-line.
Entering the Customs Union represents something of a headache. There are obstacles. Lack of common border with any of the other Customs Union members: Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan; neither Kazakhstan nor Belarus are particularly happy about having to extend the preferential terms needed to secure Armenian membership; the process require regulatory, legislative and possibly even constitutional changes.
We have committed in Vilnius to further develop and strengthen comprehensive cooperation with Armenia in all areas of mutual interest within the Eastern Partnership.
After many months of silence and secrecy the details of proposed constitutional amendments were finally unveiled. In general, I was very disappointed with the details over the changes to the Constitution. But at the same time, president Sargsyan contributed something new to Armenian political history.
The Emabssy of the United States of America made a comment for 168.am concerning PM Tigran Sargsyan’s resignition. “We have successfully worked with former Prime Minister Sargsian on a wide range of issues of bilateral interest and welcome the opportunity to work with and support the reform efforts of Armenia’s next Prime Minister”.
Will Serz Sargsyan leave the power to Robert Kocharyan or Levon Ter-Petrosyan? This question may seem strange as both of the previous presidents are in evident or hidden rival against the current president.
I think nobody wants war so we have to look at all measures that we can take. We want to send a clear message that we believe that Russia’s actions aren’t acceptable and are out of the bounds of the international law.
Lately fresh breaking news popped out in the media, which didn’t have a big connection with the current geopolitical processes. One of Russia’s most renowned media outlets Itar-Tass is planning to change its name on its 110th anniversary. It is planning to not use Itar anymore, which it had attained after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
While the Armenian political parties have focused their attention to the resignation of the government and the president and the authorities are doing their best to pass the new law on pensions seemingly the processes taking place in the world are approaching Armenia. On the surface, Armenia got so isolated from the rest of the world that we think nothing worse can happen to us.
On Sunday the Crimea’s population held a referendum and under the attentive control and in the presence of the Russian army 97 per cent of the population of Ukraine’s Crimea voted for joining Russia. Russia recognized the vote immediately. However, the international community did not recognize the vote results as Western powers claim it is annexation from Ukraine with armed force.
