Do Pashinyan and Mirzoyan not recognize the Alma-Ata Declaration anymore?

The Alma-Ata Declaration has become some sort of Bible for the current Armenian authorities. It is with the Alma-Ata Declaration that the Armenian authorities link the surrender of Artsakh, the upcoming surrender of territories in the Tavush province, and their vague position on the border delimitation.

It is repeated many times, at different levels, that Armenia strives to establish and recognize its “legitimate borders” and that the border delimitation in accordance with the Alma Ata Declaration is a beeline to achieve this goal.

Note that the Alma-Ata Declaration is a document on the goals and principles of the CIS and its foundations. The declaration confirmed the Belovezha Accords (the agreement that marked the collapse of the USSR), indicating that with the formation of the CIS, the USSR ceases to exist.

The Alma-Ata Declaration is a kind of institutionalized legacy of the CIS—a legacy based on which the government builds its foreign policy and even its domestic policy. In this context, it is logical to assume that the CIS itself, the political basis of which is the Alma-Ata Declaration, should be an important element of the Armenian foreign policy concept. But what do we see in reality?

On April 8, it was reported that Armenia declined to attend the meeting of the CIS Council of Foreign Ministers.

“Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan will not participate in the session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of CIS member states in Minsk on April 12,” Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ani Badalyan said on Monday.

In other words, we can observe that after the de facto withdrawal from the CSTO (although the authorities call it a “membership freeze”), the Armenian authorities turned their attention to the CIS, and official Yerevan de facto terminates its membership in the CIS. Obviously, the next step will be the termination of Armenia’s membership in the EAEU. Armenian society, especially businessmen, should have no illusions about this. Citizens will lose cheap gas, uranium (and, eventually, cheap electricity), grain, and the opportunity to receive money transfers from Russia, and entrepreneurs will lose the largest sales market.

In relation to the CIS, we are dealing with the phenomenon of selectivity in politics. There is a term “cafeteria Catholic” or “Cafeteria Catholicism” which refers to Catholics who declare themselves adherents of the Catholic faith but dissent from certain teachings of the church. That is, they treat the Bible as a kind of menu, choosing from it what they are interested in and pleased with.

We are dealing with the same phenomenon here. The integration process within the CIS (and not only within the CIS) is perceived by the Armenian authorities as a menu from which they can choose what they like and dismiss what does not correspond to their “course of the day” as well as the “course of the day” of their Western partners.

But in politics, this cannot last long, and the consequences of selectivity can be very unpredictable.

Think about it…