OCT. 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenian energy minister Yervand Zakharyan flew to Tehran for another round of talks with his Iranian counterpart on increasing gas supplies. Marginalised by their neighbours, Armenia and Iran have been trading gas and electricity since 2009.
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(News report from Issue No. 205, published on Oct. 22 2014)
OCT. 21 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A direct air route is opening up between Simferopol, the capital of Crimea, and Yerevan, making Armenia the only country other than Russia since the Kremlin annexed the Ukrainian region earlier this year to set up a connection.
Media reported that the airline, Grozny Avia would run the once-a-week flight from Simferopol from Nov. 16.
Perhaps this is the price that Armenia has to pay for Russian economic and military support. The West has levied sanctions on Russia for its annexation of Crimea. Russia has said that Crimea voted to join Russia in an independence referendum and that its actions were legitimate.
And what it craves is international recognition. Russia has had the same problem with South Ossetia and Abkhazia, rebel Georgian states whose independence it has recognised to the chagrin of most the international community.
The only countries which have followed Russia’s lead are small countries from Central America to the Pacific Ocean looking for economic support.
Armenia may be falling into that category over Crimea. It will join the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union in 2015 and looks to Russian forces in Armenia to act as a counterbalance for any Azerbaijani aggression over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Grozny Avia likely to be linked to Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-supported leader of Chechnya, provides another link between Russia and its semi-vassal states.
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(News report from Issue No. 205, published on Oct. 22 2014)
OCT. 15 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Around 3,000 Russian soldiers stationed in Armenia staged a week- long military exercise. The exercise is a reminder of Russia’s presence in the region and the fragile peace in the South Caucasus. Azerbaijan has made it clear that it still wants to re-take the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh currently run by pro-Armenia forces.
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(News report from Issue No. 205, published on Oct. 22 2014)
OCT. 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – As expected, Armenia signed a deal in Minsk with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan to join the Eurasian Economic Union. The Eurasian Economic Union will come into effect from Jan. 1 as the successor of the Customs Union. The Kremlin sees the Eurasian Economic Union as a counterbalance to the EU.
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(News report from Issue No. 204, published on Oct. 15 2014)
OCT. 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russian PM Dmitri Medvedev visited Armenia two days before it officially signed up to become the fourth member of the Russia-led Customs Union/Eurasian Economic Union. Mr Medvedev was visiting an agriculture exhibition in Yerevan but, more importantly, his visit will be seen as another show of support for Armenia.
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(News report from Issue No. 204, published on Oct. 15 2014)
OCT. 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a meeting of CIS heads of states in Minsk, Tajik president Emomali Rakhmon said Belarus and Armenia had already given it aid to bolster security along its border with Afghanistan. Tajikistan wants to join the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union which counts Belarus and Kazakhstan as members. Armenia is joining in 2015.
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(News report from Issue No. 204, published on Oct. 15 2014)
OCT. 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – An estimated 10,000 people rallied against Armenia’s government in central Yerevan, media reported, the biggest protest since a presidential election last year.
Opposition rallies, calling for the government to resign, are relatively commonplace in Yerevan. The issue is whether they turn violent or grow so large that the government has to react to them.
In 2008, eight people died in clashes between the security forces and demonstrators after elections.
The protest in Yerevan was the culmination of severally carefully choreographed anti-government demonstrations around the country.
And the protagonists were the same. Former president Levon Ter-Petrosian, a canny opponent for current president Serzh Sargsyan, addressed the crowd. He is credited with whipping up the anger that led to the clashes in 2008.
The protesters actual demand are hard to decipher. They, broadly, want their lives improved and the economy strengthen. No easy task for the government which is having to navigate the country through a tricky economic environment.
What is different now is the opposition’s cry that moving into Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union and away from the European Union is partly to blame for the general malaise. If the opposition can harness this, they may make more headway.
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(News report from Issue No. 204, published on Oct. 15 2014)
OCT. 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia will erect a statue of the Russian designer of the Kalashnikov rifle, Mikhail Kalashnikov, in the northern town of Gyuimri, the eurasianet.org website reported. Gyuimri is the site of the Russian military base. Kalashnikov died in 2013. Russians consider his rifle to be one of their greatest inventions.
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(News report from Issue No. 204, published on Oct. 15 2014)
OCT. 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s government approved a draft treaty for joining the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union, media reported.
The treaty should be signed by Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus at the end of summit this week in Minsk, paving the way for Armenia to join the group by the end of the year.
This is a critical moment in modern Armenian history. Armenia has been pulling away from the EU. By making the final jump into the Eurasian Economic Union, or Customs Union as it is currently known, Armenia will be confirming its pro-Russia allegiance.
The Eurasian Economic Union is mainly an economic union although it brings with it a more pro-Russia general alliance. And with Russia’s involvement in Ukraine that is, currently, a controversial stance.
But Armenia sees itself as having few options. It is surrounded by enemies and needs Russian support to bolster both its economy and military.
Leonid Slutsky, the chairman of the Russian parliament’s committee on Eurasian integration, was candid in on the merits of an enlarged Eurasian Economic Union.
“The Eurasian Economic Union will be a powerful regional economic union, which will inevitably expand,” he said according to the ITAR-Tass news agency. “Apart from completely new regional economic architecture, the EEU will certainly become a powerful barrier on the way of those who are today trying to build unipolar world.”
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(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)
OCT. 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Air Armenia has denied rumours that it is facing bankruptcy, media reported. Instead, Air Armenia explained a handful of recent flight cancellations as being linked to technical problems with the aircraft. Air Armenia is a privately owned company mainly flying to Russia. It only started passenger flights last year.
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(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)