Russia, Armenia to stay close: new presidents (from Reuters) 3/24/08
By Oleg Shchedrov
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia will maintain close relations with Armenia, its staunchest ally in the strategic South Caucasus region, the newly elected presidents of both countries said during their first meeting in Moscow on Monday.
"This is your first foreign visit after the polls and we see it as a symbol of the high priority that Russian-Armenian relations have," Russia's Dmitry Medvedev told Armenia's Serzh Sarksyan.
"We hope that under your leadership we can continue relations we enjoyed in the past years," said the Russian president-elect, who will be sworn in on May 7 to replace outgoing President Vladimir Putin.
Landlocked Christian Armenia hosts a Russian military base and receives Russian gas at preferential prices.
It provides Moscow with a foothold in a South Caucasus region that is emerging as a major route for exports of oil from the Caspian Sea and where Russia and the West are competing for influence.
Sarksyan takes over from outgoing Armenian President Robert Kocharyan on April 9, but his election last month sparked violent protests by the opposition, which said the vote was rigged.
Riots in the capital Yerevan prompted the government to introduce a state of emergency that was lifted last week. Eight people died and about 200 were injured in post-election clashes.
The warm ties between Armenia and Russia are unlikely to change under the new leaders because both men are close allies of the outgoing presidents.
"I hope your taking over the presidential power will contribute to our traditionally close ties," Sarksyan told Medvedev.
Sarksyan later met Putin and thanked him for Russia's help during the election period, though he did not elaborate what form that assistance had taken.
"We have always highly appreciated your help," Sarksyan told Putin. "We have never before enjoyed such an unequivocal position.
Putin replied: "I know political processes in Armenia are complicated ... We hope that however Armenia's internal processes develop, the capital accumulated in bilateral ties in the past years will be maintained and developed."
Russia is taking part in stalled international efforts to resolve a conflict between Armenia and its ex-Soviet Muslim neighbor Azerbaijan over the breakaway province of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The predominantly Armenian-populated Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan in a war in the early 1990s. Armenia openly backs the Karabakh separatists, but denies Azeri charges of occupying the region and some surrounding districts.
Western recognition of Kosovo's independence has sparked separatist sentiment in the former Soviet Union, including in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.
Kocharyan said last month Yerevan should recognize Karabakh as an independent state if Azerbaijan does not change its approach to peace talks.
Russia has not reacted to the idea. Earlier this month it voted in the United Nations against a resolution demanding Armenian forces withdraw from Azeri territory.
(Editing by Jon Boyle)
© Reuters 2008 All rights reserved
Monday, March 31, 2008
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Excerpts from de Waal: Voices from Afar: Freetocracy 3/28/2008
"Through a combination of cynicism and incompetence, Western governments put an imprimatur of approval on both these elections that stoked the internal conflicts....
In Armenia the final verdict was even more damning, noting that at some polling stations there was an "implausibly high voter turnout; results for Mr. Sarkisian in excess of 99 percent of the vote; and a very high incidence of invalid ballots . . . especially in Yerevan." In one district the observers recorded that there had been a turnout of 100.36 per cent, with almost all those votes going to the official candidate.
One election observer I spoke to put it more pithily, saying of the Armenian vote, 'This is the kind of election I expected to see in some African countries, not in Europe.'
By the time of the final reports however, it was all too late: the world had moved on, both presidents-elect had claimed their victory and in Armenia the blood had flowed on the streets...
The immediate issue is that these Western-led election observation missions are now as much a part of the problem as the solution. An election report should not be an indulgent school report encouraging a laggard pupil."
Thomas de Waal is Caucasus editor at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting.
See the entire article at:
URL: http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=17236
OR
http://www.scribd.com/doc/2405075/Voices-from-Afar-de-Waal?ga_uploads=1
In Armenia the final verdict was even more damning, noting that at some polling stations there was an "implausibly high voter turnout; results for Mr. Sarkisian in excess of 99 percent of the vote; and a very high incidence of invalid ballots . . . especially in Yerevan." In one district the observers recorded that there had been a turnout of 100.36 per cent, with almost all those votes going to the official candidate.
One election observer I spoke to put it more pithily, saying of the Armenian vote, 'This is the kind of election I expected to see in some African countries, not in Europe.'
By the time of the final reports however, it was all too late: the world had moved on, both presidents-elect had claimed their victory and in Armenia the blood had flowed on the streets...
The immediate issue is that these Western-led election observation missions are now as much a part of the problem as the solution. An election report should not be an indulgent school report encouraging a laggard pupil."
Thomas de Waal is Caucasus editor at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting.
See the entire article at:
URL: http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=17236
OR
http://www.scribd.com/doc/2405075/Voices-from-Afar-de-Waal?ga_uploads=1
Saturday, March 29, 2008
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