Tbilisi’s decision to prohibit arms transits will not affect Georgian-Armenian relations.
On April 9th the parliament of Georgia passed a bill prohibiting arms transits to the Russian military base in Armenia via the territory of Georgia. The contract in which the terms of such a transit were spelled out was signed in 2006 and ratified by the Georgian parliament in 2007. The contract expires this year and Georgian law-makers said “no” to its extension.
A week after the vote in the parliament the Georgian Foreign Minister, Grigol Vashadze, visited Armenia. According to unofficial data, discussion of Russian arms transits was on the agenda. The reaction of the Armenian expert was moderate. Most of them don’t think it will affect bilateral relations.
Stepan Grigoryan, the head of the Globalization and Regional Development Analysis Center, thinks that the measure taken won’t affect relations between Georgia and Armenia at all. He says it’s quite clear that this measure is not intended to harm Armenia.
Sergey Minasyan, the deputy director of the Caucasus Institute, also doesn’t believe that the ban on arms transits will damage Georgian-Armenian relations. He underlines that the contract wasn’t fulfilled and thus nothing changed after it expired. He also thinks that the operation of the Russian military base in Armenia will not be affected either, as there are other routes for such transits.
David Karapetyan, a spokesman for the Armenian Ministry of Defense, also thinks that there will be no consequences in the sphere of Armenian-Georgian relations, as does former Armenian Defense Minister Vagarshak Aratyunyan.
Susanna Petrosyan, Yerevan. Exclusively to VK
