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Why Sargsyan Didn'T Leave For Tehran

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  • Why Sargsyan Didn'T Leave For Tehran

    WHY SARGSYAN DIDN'T LEAVE FOR TEHRAN
    HAKOB BADALYAN

    Story from Lragir.am News:
    http://www.lragir.am/engsrc/comments27221.html
    Published: 16:08:14 - 29/08/2012

    Why did Armenia decide to attend the Non-Aligned Movement Summit in
    Tehran at the level of the foreign minister and not the president?

    On July 10, 2012, the Iranian Fars news agency released information
    that the president of Armenia had accepted the invitation of the
    Iranian president to attend the Non-Aligned Movement Summit. The
    invitation was handed to Serzh Sargsyan by the foreign minister of
    Iran during his visit in Armenia.

    The official Yerevan has never rejected this information by the
    Iranian agency.

    On August 29, we learn that not Serzh Sargsyan but Edward Nalbandyan
    is leaving for Tehran. Has Armenia changed its mind? Had it not
    decided who would leave for Iran so it decided to ignore the Iranian
    information on Serzh Sargsyan's attendance in order to be able to
    decide at the very last moment given the uncertainty whether or not
    the summit would take place?

    In the meantime interesting things happened including some relating to
    Armenia. In general, the interaction between Armenian delegations with
    the Russian and Iranian delegations has recently been quite often. A
    number of Iranian high-ranking officials arrived in Armenia and the
    Armenian foreign minister left for Tehran.

    Yerevan was the place of visit of Russian officials. Speakers of two
    parliamentary chambers of Russia, the minister of internal affairs
    and the representative of the president of Russia visited Armenia.

    The peak of all these visits was perhaps Serzh Sargsyan's visit to
    Moscow on August 8 and his meeting with Vladimir Putin.

    Later, Reuter published an article saying that Iran uses the Armenian
    banks for financial operations to fund its nuclear program.

    Actually, Armenia was accused to supporting the Iranian Nuclear
    Program despite international sanctions.

    The official Yerevan rejected Reuter's article at the level of the
    Central Bank but the authoritative media didn't react to the CB
    statement and didn't reject the information it has reported. And the
    Armenian power didn't wish to follow up with it. While, the reaction
    by Armenia should be at least in the form of a demand to publish a
    rejection since the prestigious media put Armenia on a very dangerous
    plain in terms of its relations with the developed world.

    Apparently, the official Yerevan preferred not to generate the issue
    with unnecessary demands, but to make the right conclusion and to
    "miss" the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran. Moreover, it would
    be very strange if the president participated in the abovementioned
    summit, since he had missed the two NATO summits.

    For the official Yerevan the priority of which is to develop relations
    with the West, it would be an excessive deflection which could end
    in a break with irreparable consequences.

    In other words, here the issue is not the Armenian-Iranian relations,
    but Armenia's role and position in the world and its mission in the
    region. Here the point is not that Armenia should try not to make
    angry the powerful ones, but to understand its own role and mission
    and show responsibility for it.

    As to the Armenian-Iranian relations, the situation is very delicate
    here and the Western warnings and hints are directed to a more global
    circumstance.

    It is clear for the West that Armenia's relations with Iran of any
    scale can't ensure breakthrough of the international sanctions for
    Iran or tangible change of the economic situation.

    But the situation would be different if Russia-Iran relations were
    built under the name of Armenia-Iran relations, and if Armenia was
    just a facilitator, but not a mediator circle but a mediator platform.

    The best proof to this is the Armenia-Iran gas pipe which before being
    built and exploited was handed to Russia and it is still unclear what
    the interest of Armenia from this strategic project.

    So, the West has no problem with the Armenian-Iranian relations, but
    the Russia-Iran relations under the veil of relations between Armenia
    and Iran. Otherwise, the Armenian-Iranian relation, containing no
    dangerous resource given its scales, could be even commendable for
    the West if it allowed Armenia diversify its economic, resource and
    infrastructure unilateral dependence on Russia.

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