Opposition leader: Armenia's standing in international relations ‘at an all-time low’
A leader of the opposition Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF, Dashnaktsutyun) party, Ishkhan Saghatelyan, who coordinates the activities of the Homeland Salvation Movement, believes that Armenia's standing in international arena has hit a historic low.
"The Republic of Armenia is constantly becoming isolated from the outside world. Armenia's standing in international relations is at an all-time low. Over the past two and a half years, the authorities, that have bought our country and people to a catastrophic state, have consistently undermined the foreign policy security of Armenia, which, by and large, led to the devastating war,” he said in Facebook post on Thursday.
“The primitive judgments on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the international relations of the Republic of Armenia, as well as the dramatically contradicting political statements led to a situation where Armenia became a non-negotiable party in the Karabakh conflict, which legitimized the outbreak of the war in the eyes of the international community,” the opposition leader wrote.
“Due to Nikol's [Pashinyan] exceptional dilettantism, the world began to perceive the Karabakh conflict not as a fight for the right to self-determination, but as a purely territorial dispute.
“Armenia entered the war without the support of a strategic ally and stable relations with its strategic partners. As a result, no country’s executive authorities expressed solidarity with the Republic of Armenia. We were left alone in the face of the Azerbaijani-Turkish tandem and the states showing vocal support to them,” Saghatelyan said.
Acceding to him, the contempt of the international community for the Armenian authorities was observed still before the war, with no foreign leader paying a state visit to Armenia after La Francophonie summit.
“The qualitative decline in relations with Russia, a strategic ally, friendly Iran, as well as China, the European Union and the United States was obvious. Do Armenia’s interests actually not coincide with the interests of other major players in our region? Of course they coincide .... it is just necessary to form first of all a reliable government with a deep insight into state interests in Armenia.
“For that, we need a government with which it will be possible to talk to, negotiate and agree to embark on a path together. No country, not even our closest allies, is going to cooperate with an unbalanced and adventurous man.
“Under these conditions, Armenia continues to isolate itself from the world, while the enemy [Azerbaijan], taking advantage of this situation, strengthens its positions and increases its influence. The consequences of all this are borne by our people and state.
“Only the enemy, who has new expectations from the traitor on January 11, wishes to negotiate with the leader who has lost his dignity and capitulated to it.
“This is the price of Nikol's continued stay in power,” he said.