Recently there were two serious scandals one of which was related to the issue of the territories of Artsakh and the other issue is related to the adoption of a concept on developing the Russian language in Armenia.
During the question and answer session after his speech at the Armenia-Diaspora conference the Armenian minister of defense Nalbandyan spoke about negotiations on “return of territories that do not threaten security”. This statement was immediately reported by the Russian and Azerbaijani mass media though Armenia never officially confirmed or dismissed this information. Interestingly, the deputy minister of foreign affairs Shavarsh Kocharyan, commenting on this statement, said nobody is going to return territories to anyone. For his part, Nalbandyan’s Artsakh counterpart Karen Mirzoyan announced that the NKR territories are laid down in the NKR Constitution and are not subject to discussion.
A few days ago the chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces Movses Hakobyan announced that he does not know any territories that do not threaten the security of Artsakh. “Today a defense system has been created in Artsakh and if it is disrupted, the security of Artsakh will be exposed to a serious threat.”
In answer to the question whether the army will oppose to handing territories, Movses Hakobyan said the army will carry out the order that the political leadership will give. “Moreover, we need new and better territories, which will guarantee the independence of Artsakh,” Hakobyan said.
Later, Aliyev confessed at the UN that the world could not care less about the territories, the international community has failed to force Armenia to carry out the UN resolutions for 22 years. It turns out that handing lands is just Aliyev’s wish, and in this situation it is not clear what the “political leadership” of Armenia is negotiating.
It goes without saying that the chief of general staff expresses the point of view of the military though he refers to the “order of the political leadership”, nevertheless the same leadership is let know the moods in the army.
For his part, Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan, answering the question on the concept for the Russian language teaching, announced that he has not made such an assignment though the legal act on the concept states it has been developed on the prime minister’s assignment. The justification for the adoption of the concept is not persuasive. Moreover, this justification proves that there is no need for such a concept, and it is enough to improve the quality of teaching Russian at schools.
The prime minister’s statement is nonsense. Even more so for the top government official. And if he has not given such an assignment, he could cancel it if he disagrees or resign if he is forced to. And if he disagrees, why does he deny responsibility?
In a situation when there are no persuasive arguments and justifications, the public increasingly believes that the Armenian government, in this case Nalbandyan and Karen Karapetyan, act in line with the interests of another country rather than Armenia.
These developments contain potential for serious dissatisfaction because both are aimed at the two pillars of the Armenian state, sovereignty and identity – the soldier and the language. If the situation has got that far, it means the utter irresponsibility and the practice of escaping problems for the sake of their own security over the past twenty years has culminated. What happens next is not hard to guess.
The army and people warn: there will be unpredictable developments once they cross the “red line”.
