Friday, January 31 2014

Russia has been strengthening the 102nd
military base and air defence group in Armenia. It has also rented
“Erebuni” airport. What is the reason of that? Who such strengthening is
directed against? How much does it meet Armenia’s interests?

 Reinforcement of the 102nd Russian military
base in Armenia is not
surprising, given that security is Eurasian Union's
best trump card. I think, it is of utmost importance for Armenia amid
the constant threat of war in the region. In the light of the
ongoing internal processes in Turkey
and Azerbaijan
and the general growth of inadequacy in the region, the 102nd military base
must be reinforced to meet any turn of events. I mean protection of Armenia and Russia's interests, of course.
Therefore, what we observe now is not surprising,  Russia's
growing military presence in Armenia
is aimed against the same countries
as before - in the Soviet period - against Turkey, first of all. In this
light, Russia
committed a blunder at the time doing Georgia's bidding and destroying the system
of its bases in the region and withdrawing the bases from Akhalkalaki and Batumi.

At
resent, the 102nd Russian military base in Gyumri, Armenia,
is being actively re-equipped with new artillery missiles systems and armored
vehicles. Particularly, 9K58 Smerch 300mm Multiple Launch Rocket Systems have
already been delivered to the base. Simultaneously, the aviation base No.3624
at the Erebuni Airport
in Yerevan with
MiG-29 jet fighter aircrafts escadrille will be armed with an escadrille of
helicopters.  A United Armenian-Russian anti-aircraft
system is being established. It is equipped with S- 300 PS (PM) anti aircraft
systems, Krug ZRK-SD (2K11) air defense systems, 2P25M1 Kub anti-aircraft
missile system, S-300V/ mobile Anti Ballistic Missile system and 9K37M1-2
Buk-M1-2 (Ural) – missile systems as well as the Russian anti-aircraft systems
deployed in the North Caucasus.

How logical
is Russia’s striving to attract
former republics of the USSR
through organizing of the “march of thousands of captive guestarbiters” at Moscow streets, or
hysteria in mass media regarding an Azerbaijani-killer from Birylevo or an
Armenian that killed 18 people?

The point
is that the persons you are speaking about were not absolutely innocent.

Nobody saysthat…

In case of
Biryulevo, the point was not at all that an Azerbaijani Zeynalov killed a
Russian guy Sherbakov. The point is that Moscow
as well as other Russian cities are tired of the beyond of control migration. As
a Moscow
resident, I can say that the migration situation has been changing towards the
negative side. Today they speak about establishment of the emigration ghetto
which de-facto are already available in Moscow,
for instance in Biryulevo. Naturally, Moscow
residents are not happy for such an abnormal situation, which is not justified
even from the economic point of view. As  for the story of the Armenian driver
Harutyunyan, it is a tragical event. Nevertheless, both incidents were
extraordinary. But if a man was crushed to death by Harutyunyan's car, this
accident would not be beyond the frames of ordinary accident history. However,
too many people died because of the accident and Russian mass media could not
simply ignore it.

Do you mean
that it was not done on the state level?

There is no
doubt the situation was not poisoned at the state level. To be confident, one
should simply see how many Armenians and Azerbaijanis live in Russia. The south of Krasnodar region, and
Shochi, in particular, have de-facto become Armenian, but not everybody are
happy for such a fact. However, we do not discuss such issues at the federal and
regional level. It conveys a great deal. For this reason, discussion of
extraordinary situations is unfortunately extremely emotional. However, if the
driver was not Armenian but, for instance, American, undoubtedly mass media
would touch on the American topic with the same zeal.  

Iranian experts
always say about the necessity of cooperation with Russia, in particular, in the
south Caucasus. How do you imagine such cooperation? What does it suppose especially after the Genevaconference?

 I think it is still early to say that the
Russian-Iranian relations will be radically changed. The Iranian policy is very
much complex and, alas, contradictory. For this reason, it is not always
possible to trust in Iran.
For this reason, I would not link power change in Iran with new opportunities in
foreign policy. Of course, certain improvement and changing is possible, but
one should not wait for more. In fact, today we do not understand what Iran expects from its relations with Russia.
As a rule, the intentions
declared by Teheran, meet serious disagreements at the stage of their
fulfillment.  

 

 

May I
suppose that you mean aspiration of Iran
to export Shiite Islam to Russia?

 

The Russian
Muslims are chiefly Sunni, whereas the Shiite Iran has been more and more
offering Moscow
its own ways for
settlement of problems of radical Islamism, in particular, of  the Sunni Vahabism. Moreover, Iran
is striving to spread its influence
on the Russian Muslims. This topic was not discussed several years ago, but at
present it is gradually gaining voice. The
religious factors are more and more playing a bigger part than even economy and
policy. There are many disagreements
between Moscow
and Teheran. For this reason,  Russia and Iran have to delay development of
relations a little.

 

Since
losing a part of the NATO outpost the Turkish policy “zero problem with
neighbors” has transformed into the policy “no neighbor without problems”.
Nevertheless, Ankara is trying to move forward in
the south Caucasus. Will you please comment on such a policy?
 

 

Although it is obvious that Turkey has lost the role NATO's
outpost and despite failure of the Turkish policy "zero problem with neighbours"
and its failure in Syria,
today Turkey
has serious prospects to enhance its influence in the region.

An ocean of
young energy has been accumulated in Turkey today, which should be
directed somewhere, as the Turkish market is too narrow. Russia itself needs the youth and
energy of the Turkish society. I think that all this young energy is gaining
the Islamist color thanks to natural course of events. That is to say, it will
not be liberal and will not be oriented towards Europe.
Turkey has already
informally abandoned a silly and absolutely unreal attempt to find itself
within Europe. And Islamism has remained the
only option for Turkey, not
the one functioning in Saudi Arabia,
the countries of Persian Gulf or in Egypt, but just the political
islamism. Political islamism goes on feeding pan-Turanian projects very well,
especially if we take into consideration the fact that Turkic nations living at
the post-Soviet area feel certain historical community with the Turks. The
expert said that one should not overemphasize this community after split of the
Ottoman empire and other events. Nevertheless,
despite changing of coordinates of Turkey in the world, this topic
still remains. Turkey
has been gradually walking the way of the political Islamism and will go on
developing in this way. Let's take Georgia. Here the influence of the
Turkish political,

economic
and religious influence is obvious. And Ajaria is a bright sample of that.
Today we see the growth of the Turkish influence in Abkhazia too, although the
Abkhazians try to build their national state. As for Armenia, one should not wait for
the growth of Turkish political influence in this country. As for the growth of
the Turkish economic presence in Armenia, I think it is sexed up.

 

Do the Armenian-Turkish
relations have any prospect in the system of coordinated described by you?

 The Armenian-Turkish relations in the
available new system of coordinates practically have no prospect. They may have
prospects only if Armenia
abandons its statehood, which, I am confident, will never happen. It is clear
that Turkey will increase
pressure upon Armenia,
including with a help of Azerbaijan,
and this is normal. It is obvious that any programmes for settlement of the
Armenian-Turkish relations will be directly linked with Karabakh settlement. It
was funny to observe how this fact was abandoned at the very beginning of the
"football diplomacy", but later nevertheless found itself on the
agenda. I am confident that the Karabakh conflict cannot be de-jure settled
today, although de-facto it was settled long ago since establishment of Nagornyy Karabakh Republic
waiting for the international recognition. For this reason, one should not wait
for returning of this state within

Azerbaijan, as it is simply impossible. There
is simply no geo-political configuration which supposes returning of the NKR within Azerbaijan. For
this reason, I am rather pessimistic to unblocking of Armenia by Turkey in the near future. Actually,
it is not clear, if Armenia
and Turkey
need it.