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RAFFI HOVANNISIAN AT DITCHLEY CONFERENCE
Lragir.am
15 Oct 2010
Ditchley Park, UK-Raffi K. Hovannisian, Armenia's first foreign
minister and Heritage Party chairman is currently in the United
Kingdom participating in a Ditchley Foundation conference on "The EU
and Russia's shared neighbourhood." Attended by leading policymakers
and analysts from the Russian Federation, the European Union, the
United States and beyond, the conference is being chaired by Sir
Rodric Brathwaite, Her Majesty's first ambassador to the independent
Republic of Armenia and its neighboring states.
In the plenary session today on Russia, Europe, and the 'neighborhood'
which was introduced, among others, by Ambassador Peter Semneby and
Russian specialist Sergey Karaganov, Raffi Hovannisian took the floor
to address the Russian-European relationship and its impact on Armenia
and the region in the light of three relevant unsurmounted divides
on the Georgia-Russia, Armenia-Turkey, and Iran-Transatlantic axes.
Against this background, he noted the imperative to maintain and
deepen Armenian sovereignty and policy diversification based on a
truly reciprocal 'strategic' relationship between Moscow and Yerevan.
Hovannisian further underscored the need to support Turkish-Armenian
normalization, not as 'West-friendly' window dressing that often
glosses over and shores up the weak legitimacy of the negotiating
sides, but as a brave new way to get to true reconciliation through
the truth and full closure on the Genocide and Great Armenian
Dispossession. On Mountainous Karabagh and similarly situated others,
he articulated the inadmissibility of inventing artificial legal
constructs such as 'sui generis' to fit political predispositions and
to support one nation's sovereignty to the exclusion of others-both
the West and Russia have engaged in this selective application
of international legal standards-and the long-overdue requirement
to recognize the Mountainous Karabagh Republic, the original 'sui
generis' case.
Finally, Raffi Hovannisian issued the challenge of applying the rule of
law both domestically and in international affairs and thus overcoming
the long-standing tension, both in Western and Russian policy, between
democratic benchmarks and the pursuit of raw geopolitical interests.
The Ditchley conference continues today and tomorrow in the format of
smaller working groups that will work out policy prescriptions on the
Moscow-Brussels connection; the shared neighborhood and protracted
conflicts; and economic and energy issues.
From: A. Papazian
Lragir.am
15 Oct 2010
Ditchley Park, UK-Raffi K. Hovannisian, Armenia's first foreign
minister and Heritage Party chairman is currently in the United
Kingdom participating in a Ditchley Foundation conference on "The EU
and Russia's shared neighbourhood." Attended by leading policymakers
and analysts from the Russian Federation, the European Union, the
United States and beyond, the conference is being chaired by Sir
Rodric Brathwaite, Her Majesty's first ambassador to the independent
Republic of Armenia and its neighboring states.
In the plenary session today on Russia, Europe, and the 'neighborhood'
which was introduced, among others, by Ambassador Peter Semneby and
Russian specialist Sergey Karaganov, Raffi Hovannisian took the floor
to address the Russian-European relationship and its impact on Armenia
and the region in the light of three relevant unsurmounted divides
on the Georgia-Russia, Armenia-Turkey, and Iran-Transatlantic axes.
Against this background, he noted the imperative to maintain and
deepen Armenian sovereignty and policy diversification based on a
truly reciprocal 'strategic' relationship between Moscow and Yerevan.
Hovannisian further underscored the need to support Turkish-Armenian
normalization, not as 'West-friendly' window dressing that often
glosses over and shores up the weak legitimacy of the negotiating
sides, but as a brave new way to get to true reconciliation through
the truth and full closure on the Genocide and Great Armenian
Dispossession. On Mountainous Karabagh and similarly situated others,
he articulated the inadmissibility of inventing artificial legal
constructs such as 'sui generis' to fit political predispositions and
to support one nation's sovereignty to the exclusion of others-both
the West and Russia have engaged in this selective application
of international legal standards-and the long-overdue requirement
to recognize the Mountainous Karabagh Republic, the original 'sui
generis' case.
Finally, Raffi Hovannisian issued the challenge of applying the rule of
law both domestically and in international affairs and thus overcoming
the long-standing tension, both in Western and Russian policy, between
democratic benchmarks and the pursuit of raw geopolitical interests.
The Ditchley conference continues today and tomorrow in the format of
smaller working groups that will work out policy prescriptions on the
Moscow-Brussels connection; the shared neighborhood and protracted
conflicts; and economic and energy issues.
From: A. Papazian