Armenian authorities 'lack transparency and accountability' in foreign policy affairs - expert

The Armenian authorities have failed to meet their promise to ensure transparency of work and accountability to public, according to Suren Sargsyan, an expert in international affairs.  

In an interview with Tert.am, he highlighted especially the foreign policy drawbacks, citing the European Parliament's statement on the construction of a highway connecting Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh), the protest action outside the Armenian Embassy in Tehran and the recently reported  meeting between the Iranian ambassador in Baku and the representative of the "Azerbaijani community in Karabakh".

"Demonstrating indifference to issues of the kind means inability to see the problem - and the extent to which it may increase, producing further consequences. It isn't the right strategy to opt for refraining from comments on the events and leaving the entire burden of [responsibility for] foreign policy affairs to the foreign minister. The foreign minister is not the only person in charge for foreign policies; he is just one of the tools. Such tools involve also the Government, the head of state, and the National Assembly. So no need at all to lay the entire blame on the foreign minister. We have serious problems whose solution would be unpromising indeed if left to the Foreign Ministry alone," Sargsyan said.

According to the analyst, the failure to react to the above developments is tantamount to ignoring the public and avoiding an open dialogue with the people to state the existing problems and gaps. "This will entail  negative consequences given that the authorities themselves had promised to be transparent and accountable to the people, which we do not see - at least when it comes to foreign policy affairs," he added.

Elaborating on the enumerated problems, Sargsyan pointed out to the specific reasons in each case.

In his words, the European Parliament's controversial statement results from a failure to ensure an active collaboration with the Council of Europe. "The disruption of active work has resulted in this kind of situation. We could have worked more efficiently in the Council of Europe to avoid such wordings," he noted.  

Commenting on the protests in the Iranian capital - with demands for severing the Armenian-Israeli diplomatic relations - the experts said he regrets that the southern neighbor's position was not duly taken into account earlier. 

"[The authorities] should have worked with Iran before that to plainly present -  and justify - the need for having a resident ambassador [in Tel Aviv]. I think they have worked with Iran through just a couple of diplomatic channels, which isn't enough for resolving issues of the kind. It is necessary to focus on several areas, involving, upon necessity, also our community. Besides, high-level bilateral dialogues should have taken place between not only the leaders of the Republic of Armenia and the Islamic Republic of Iran but also different other officials."

Addressing the Iranian ambassador's meeting with the "Azerbaijanis of Karabakh", Sargsyan said he thinks that the "Azerbaijani community's leader" was given legitimacy "thanks to Armenia". "His weight, so to speak, gained significance after Armenia gave consent to the [announced] meeting with the OSCE Minsk Group ambassadors accredited to Baku. Meetings of the kind never took place before, with no consent by Armenia being in place. With Armenia having no objections now, that meeting did take place," he added.