“Haykakan Zhamanak” is unhappy with the fact that President Serzh Sarkisian’s latest visit to Russia coincided with the 27th anniversary of a declaration of independence that was adopted by Soviet Armenia’s parliament in 1990. The paper points to speculation that Russian President Vladimir Putin deliberately invited Sarkisian to his summer retreat in Sochi on that day in order to “humiliate Armenia and emphasize its not being independent.”
Lragir.am reports that the outgoing U.S. co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, Richard Hoagland, on Wednesday publicized the key elements of a framework peace agreement on Nagorno-Karabakh which Armenia and Azerbaijan have been discussing for more than a decade. “The elements publicized by him are not new,” comments the online publication. It is nonetheless surprised by the timing of Hoagland’s statement, saying that it came as Putin and Sarkisian discussed the Karabakh conflict in Sochi.
In an interview with “Aravot,” a pro-Western Armenian analyst, Anush Sedrakian, claims that Russia will try to thwart an agreement on “enhanced partnership” between Armenia and the European Union which is due to be signed in November. “Russia cannot fail to try to scuttle the signing of the agreement between Armenia and the EU,” she says. But, she says, Russia is now weaker than it was in 2013 when Sarkisian decided to make Armenia part of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union at the expense of an Association Agreement with the EU. Sedrakian specifically cites economic sanctions that have since been imposed on Moscow by the EU and the United States. She is also hopeful that a statement on the issue made by Prime Minister Karen Karapetian this week means that Yerevan is really determined to sign the new deal with the EU.
(Tigran Avetisian)
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