Friday, April 25 2014

Deputy Prime
Minister of Russia Dmitry Rogozin has been appointed by President Putin as
Co-chair of the Russian-Azerbaijani Inter-governmental Commission on Economic
Cooperation. Many in Armenia know that you and your association have closely
cooperated with Rogozin and his Congress of Russian Communities since the early
1990s. In this light, what do you expect from this appointment and can it
influence Russia's policy on the Nagorno-Karabakh problem?

 

It is for
President Putin to decide what this policy should be, while Rogozin, as his
strong supporter, has all professional qualities for carrying it out. Russia's
policy on the so-called self-proclaimed states was specified by Putin after the
referendum in Crimea. It is clear: the key aspects here are the God-given right
of a nation to self-determination and the inadmissibility of double standards
as far as its use is concerned. Putin's criticism of the use of double
standards in approaches to Kosovo and Crimea means that Russia has undertaken a
mission to protect the UN principle of a nation's universal right to
self-determination.

 

This mission
cannot but influence the approaches to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Putin's
concept is a concept of a multi-polar world, where you cannot control
everything from one center. Harmony and order in a polymorphous world must not
be dictated but must be generally accepted as universal means to realize a
nation's right to self-determination. One of such universal means is
referendum, when a nation determines its future on its own, something that
happened in Nagorno-Karabakh over 20 years ago and in Crimea quite recently. Of
course, it was not a coincidence that such a significant person like Rogozin
was named to supervise relations in the Caucasus region. And no arguments that
in the Caucasus, unlike Moldova, where he was the President's representative of
Transdniestria, he will focus on economics only will convince me of otherwise.

 

Do you mean that Rogozin will also undertake the
diplomatic function to untangling the Nagorno-Karabakh knot? Don't you think
that he will be first of all responsible for bringing Azerbaijan back into the
framework of Russia's geopolitical interests?

 

In today's
post-modern world politics and economics reflect each other. No wonder that the
West is threatening Russia with economically absurd sanctions. Recently
Vladimir Pozner asked Alexander Dugin – who is also my good friend – to specify
the geographic borders of the Russian world. Dugin said, "You should keep
in mind the foreign political borders of the former Soviet Union." Pozner
intentionally asked again: Does it mean that the matter also concerns the South
Caucasus countries? The reply was also short: these countries are certainly
part of the Russian world. So, Dmitry Rogozin has been committed to that stand
since 1993 when he founded the Congress of Russian Communities and he has not
changed this stand since. It is noteworthy that the idea to unite the Russians
who instantly found themselves outside Russia following the collapse of the
USSR, i.e. the idea of reintegration of the Russian world by creating Russian
communities in the post-Soviet countries and their further unification, came to
Dmitry’s head when he organized a conference entitled “The Karabakh Syndrome in
Russian Diplomacy” in Moscow in autumn 1992. At that time Dmitry was the head
of the Russian Association of Young Politicians and he invited me (I have been
the chairman of the Association of Political Scientists of Armenia since 1991)
to present the Armenian view of the problem. We were already friends by that
time and I offered my help in logistical issues related to the participants
from Armenia and Azerbaijan, where I had a lot of friends and colleagues and
kept warm relations with them after the joint student and post-graduate years
at the Moscow State University. Dmitry was glad to accept my offer and then I
advised him to also invite representatives of the Russian communities of
Armenia and Azerbaijan to the conference.

 

Rogozin liked the
idea very much. As I had contacts with the heads of the communities, I promptly
contacted them and on Rogozin’s behalf I invited them to the conference in
Moscow. I am absolutely confident that it was then – during the conference and
right after the conference, during our private conversation with the Russian
people who found themselves on the opposite sides of the bloody confrontation –
that Dmitry for the first time realized the tragedy of the divided people. I
have no doubt that it was as a result of that conversation that he became determined
to devote his great energy, intellect and executive talent to reunification of
the Russian world.

 

So, do you think
Rogozin is a true statesman and politician capable to cope with this uneasy
task? 

 

In the whole
post-Soviet area it is hard to find at least a dozen of politicians who would
be so consistent and would not change their course. Yet, notwithstanding his
doubtless dignity Rogozin would not have an opportunity for self-fulfillment if
Vladimir Putin were not at the wheel of the country. This is the unique role of
the state leader, and that role was perfectly characterized by Alexander Dugin:
“Putin is everything for Russia, Putin is absolute!”