David Petrosyan: “Foreign political concept should be co-subdued the concept of NationalSecurity”

Interview by Susanna Petrosyan, Yerevan. Exclusively to VK

The project of Foreign-political Concept (PFC) is being intensively discussed in Armenia today. It concerns some political circles. For example, the chairman of the party Dashnaktsyutun Armen Rustamyan expressed his concerns on some articles in the project. The political observer of the information and analysis center Noyan Tapan, David Petrosyan, comments on the discussed project.

-    At the recent conference, Ai-Dat, the chairman of the permanent parliamentary commission on foreign relations, Armen Rusatamyan, said that the PFC didn’t correlate with some norms of the National Security Concept and the Military Doctrine. For example, the project doesn’t mention that Armenia is a guarantee of security and independence of Nagorny Karabakh, which is stated in the Military Doctrine. Moreover, the PFC doesn’t mention threat to Armenia’s security by Turkey and Azerbaijan. Do you share this point of view?

-    First of all, I should agree with Armen Rustamyan that it is only a project. A project can contain some disadvantages and mismatches. The project of the document needs for a detailed analysis. And only after it, the document could be adopted. It is firstly.

Secondly, if such huge mismatches exist, it is strange that nobody speaks about it from the floor of the parliament. Armen Rustamyan heads the permanent parliamentary commission on foreign relations. It appears he kept the criticism for the election race for using it as an argument.

Thirdly, the dominant document is the National Security Concept, and the Military Doctrine and the Foreign Political Concept should match with it. The discussed project of the Foreign Political concept should be co-subdued to the main document – the National Security Concept.

-    Rustamyan thinks that the best basement for the Foreign Political Concept could be the ideology of Ai-Dat (Armenian Court), which is not only aimed at the international recognition of the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Turkey, but also aimed at compensation for committed crimes by Ankara. Is this suggestion real?

-    Ai-Dat is the party ideology of the traditional Armenian party Dashnaktsyutun. They suggest using the party ideology in a state document. I think basic state documents shouldn’t be mixed up. Furthermore, Dashnaktsyutun is not the major political force in the country. It is nonsense to use the party ideology as a foundation for a state document. Since the USSR where the communist ideology was used for development of state documents, nobody has done it.