It is important for Armenia to maintain economic interaction with Russia – Artur Atayev

 
Speaking with Alpha News, Russian political scientist Artur Atayev commented on the US-Armenia strategic partnership agreement and the Russia-Iran Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty.

“Armenia’s current leader clearly sets his course toward leaving the political and military space associated with Eurasian integration and with Russia. He says all this very openly at both the international and domestic Armenian levels. And in my personal opinion, nothing good will come of this for Armenia, because according to Pashinyan’s formula, Armenia stops cooperating with Russia politically and militarily but remains a partner economically. But not everything is so simple, because Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk says that as Armenia enters the Western space more intensively, it will have to leave the EAEU space.

Today it is quite a serious driving force. In this regard, Overchuk’s statement gives reason to believe that Armenia will not win. And now for Armenia, in addition to the military-political factor, the economic factor is one of the key ones. I doubt that Pashinyan would have been able to achieve such a victory if Armenia had not had economic growth. It is important for the Armenian political leadership to keep the interaction with Russia in the sphere of economic development.

It is important for the Armenian Foreign Ministry to secure at some stage that Russia will not impose sanctions. But, unfortunately or fortunately, Russia has no experience in applying economic pressure to its neighbors. Therefore, the concerns of a number of experts and politicians in Armenia are in vain,” Atayev said.

According to the expert, it is quite natural that Iran wants to secure serious support from the global nuclear power, i.e., Russia.

“In the conditions when unprecedented measures of economic pressure and a serious sanctions regime are in effect against Iran and Russia and in the conditions of Trump’s coming to power, it is a completely natural process to consolidate and develop the trends that Iran and Russia have. We are talking, first of all, about economic cooperation. It is growing even in the field of automobile production. But what matters for Iran is that since after the loss of Syria, the level and quality of global challenges and threats to Iran have increased significantly. It is not only about Israel or the United States; we are also talking about part of the Arab-Muslim world.

If Iran weakens, they will start to gnaw at it. Therefore, it is completely natural that Iran wants to gain serious support from a global nuclear power, which now has the number one army, which opposes the entire NATO bloc. In these conditions, this image move is quite understandable,” Atayev said.

The expert also commented on the news that Georgia is proposing a trilateral cooperation initiative to Armenia and Azerbaijan in various areas, as well as what to expect from Trump’s upcoming presidency.