Analyst: Armenia has almost no state strategy for foreign policy

Armenian political scientist Stepan Danielyan has said Armenia had practically no state strategy of foreign policy, where the country is moving, on what course - questions that the authorities themselves will not answer.

"I think neither the Prime Minister, nor the Foreign Minister, nor other key officials of Armenia will be able to answer this question because they themselves do not know where Armenia is going," Danielyan said on December 28, Caliber.Az reports, citing Armenian media.

“In the current state of affairs, it is more correct to try to analyse where the world is moving and what impact it has on Armenia.  As historical experience shows, Türkiye and Russia are getting closer to each other amid the expansionist aspirations of the West, and against this background, as history also shows, Armenia suffers.”

"I think neither the prime minister, the foreign minister, nor other key officials of Armenia will be able to answer this question because they themselves do not know where Armenia is moving. In the current state of affairs, it is more correct to try to analyze where the world is moving and what impact it has on Armenia.  In the context of the expansionist aspirations of the West, as historical experience shows, Türkiye and Russia are converging, and against this background, as history also demonstrates, Armenia suffers," Danielyan said.

He is sure that the trends of the current events were clear as early as 2016, and it is not by chance that it was during that period that Armenia's third president Serzh Sargsyan started talking about the need for concessions.

"And here the question really arises to the previous authorities, why they failed to convey to the people the danger of the processes that had been started. Was there an understanding of what the so-called Arab Spring could lead to; the deterioration of Western relations with Türkiye, let's not forget that at that time an assassination attempt on Recep Tayyip Erdogan was organised," he said.

The current government is also unable to openly present the whole picture of the processes to the society, and when it tries to do so, it runs into a wall of distrust, , Danielyan believes.

Armenia also lacks an effective political system that could take over these functions, which in the current circumstances is detrimental to the interests of national security.    

Asked whether he agrees with the position of the authorities, who assure that the outcome of the Karabakh process was predetermined, Danielyan noted that when coming to power, the incumbent Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan violated certain international rules and foundations regarding the resolution of conflicts, and the current situation is the result of that.

"Being a man from the street, he did not understand where the processes were going. Unlike Azerbaijan, there were no government-funded think tanks in Armenia, and, consequently, there was no understanding of where geopolitical processes were going and what the country's strategy would be at this or that stage," he said, adding that by saving money on the funding of think tanks, Armenia suffered significant human, territorial and material losses.