A new political phenomenon is observed in Armenia - the youth that has launched large-scale protests in the city center. The authorities will face serious problems unless they reckon with that youth, says Ambassador Arman Navasardyan. According to him, with the rapidly developing geopolitical processes in the world, new actors, mainly transnational organizations, NGOs and Mass Media "have come into the arena."
"It appears to me that the processes in Armenia are not desirable today. The Armenian Foreign Ministry's differentiated foreign policy line of the last 6 months is bringing fruits. For instance, at the EaP Summit in Riga, Armenia was offered further cooperation with the EU despite joining the Eurasian Economic Union. The same situation is observed in the country's simultaneous cooperation with NATO and CSTO," Ambassador Navasardyan told a news conference in Yerevan on July 3.
The diplomat believes that Armenia is the only country in the region and the post-Soviet area to cooperate with the West and the East at once. Navasardyan is sure that Armenia may become an instrument to link these two poles. Both Europe and Russia comprehend this. That is, Yerevan is considered as a "Trojan Horse" now, he said.
Yet, the diplomat thinks the protest organizers proved rather clever young people who did their best not to affect the country's foreign policy. "However, I disagree with the statement that the situation in the country has no political subtext. It has political subtext as corruption is a political phenomenon that must be liquidated to avoid public unrest," he said.