Your trusted source

The past 2017 year can be described not as a year of successes but rather prospects first of all with the signed Armenia-EU Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement that laid basis for those prospects, Styopa Safaryan, Founder of the Armenian Institute of International and Security Affairs (AIISA) told Panorama.am, adding the signed document was not ordinary both in terms of its significance and expected consequences.

Speaking of the expectations in 2018, Safaryan suggested it is too early to see tangible results of the signed document this year. “The year 2018 is a period for serious preparations, a year to lay basis [for development]. If the foundations are properly laid, the construction will be built in a correct way and vice versa. 2018 will be important and decisive for forming a new cabinet, as Armenia is shifting to a parliamentary system. New faces should emerge in the cabinet to come up with reformist, innovative and radical ideas and programmes,” Safaryan said.

Speaking of the Armenian pledge to welcome the spring of 2018 without Armenian-Turkish Protocols, Safaryan noted the protocols remain a burden of the past, and we should get rid of them as soon as possible.

“The authorities were the ones who brought the issue into the country’s agenda and they are responsible to overcome it,” explained Safaryan.