ONE-WAY STREET

Allied relations between Moscow and Yerevan are being subjected to a severe test because of the "Crimean crisis". The vote of the Armenian delegation at the UN General Assembly caused quite a fierce debate in Armenian society. The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution which expressed support for the territorial integrity of Ukraine. One hundred of the 193 UN member states voted for the resolution, 11 voted against and 58 abstained, while the delegations of 23 states did not participate in the vote. Azerbaijan supported the resolution. Armenia, in turn, voted against the resolution as did Russia itself, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, North Korea, Nicaragua, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.

It is unlikely that the position of the Armenian delegation was so unexpected. First, in a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin the day before, Serzh Sargsyan supported "Crimean self-determination", for which he was harshly criticized by the US ambassador to Armenia. Here, of course, one might wonder why the diplomat did not show the same kind of firmness when it came to the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, but this is a separate subject of discussion. What is important is that this US criticism seems to have seriously frightened Armenia. For this reason, according to sources in Yerevan, Armenia was originally going to take a "neutral position" in the vote. And they decided to vote "for" only at the last minute after frank pressure from Russia. In any case, according to the Yerevan newspaper Hraparak, Armenia's voting "against" was a surprise for the UN, including for Armenia's ambassador to Ukraine Andranik Manukyan. One day before, he was called from Yerevan and told that they would vote neutral, and he can give this "good news" to the Ukrainian side, which had temporarily recalled its ambassador Ivan Kukhta until Armenia voted in the UN.

It is noteworthy that in Yerevan not everyone agrees with this position of their country. In particular, the secretary of the parliamentary faction of the Armenian National Congress, Aram Manukyan, quite abruptly assessed the fact that representatives of Yerevan first planned to abstain from voting in the UN and "remain neutral", but then supported Moscow. The Armenian authorities should not have flown about like a moth between Europe and Russia, Manukyan said at a parliamentary briefing. He agreed that Armenia's vote against the resolution on the territorial integrity of Ukraine - considering the strategic partnership with Russia - is the lesser of two evils. But Armenia, he added, has reduced its foreign policy to such a miserable state that it has no right to form its foreign policy agenda on its own. "We have to obey whoever speaks more loudly," Manukyan said. According to a deputy from the PAP (Prosperous Armenia Party), Stepan Margaryan, the basis of all relations should be the country's security, and therefore for Armenia it would be more preferable to take a neutral position on the resolution on the referendum in the Crimea, which would not have harmed Russia. By voting against Russia, Armenia would have harmed only itself.

The expert of the Armenian Centre for Political and International Studies, Ruben Mehrabyan, was even franker in an interview with Novosti Armenii - NEWS.am. He called the vote in the UN Armenia's fatal error: "This is an eloquent indication that the Republic of Armenia cannot exist as a de facto independent state. It appears as a humble slave of Russia." Mehrabyan warned: "Not only Armenian-Ukrainian relations, but also Armenia's relations with the international community were endangered. Armenia placed itself outside the civilized world."

And the head of the National Self-Determination Union, Paruyr Hayrikyan, said that with its vote in the UN, Armenia put itself on a par with "rogue states".

Let's leave the detailed analysis of the "Crimean crisis" aside especially as in the global information space this topic is being addressed constantly and in detail from different angles and positions. What is important is that Armenia is clearly not one of the states that advocate respect for other's borders and territorial integrity. So the vote in the UN did not contradict principles of Armenian foreign policy. Moreover, Armenia does not just have a special relationship with Russia. Russian journalist Mikhail Leontyev recalled last summer that had it not been for Russia, Armenia most likely would not be on the map now.

Yerevan's initial plans to abstain from voting in the UN and "remain neutral" suggest that Armenia decided that the other side has a more preferable audience and it was already regarded as a good reason for refusing to support Russia. Also, Western aid tranches were at stake. They exist only in dreams and promises, but Faulkner had said that a person can live for a long time on the money he is waiting for.

Apparently, Yerevan understands allied relations exclusively as a one-way street. And they are fully confident that moral and political commitments exist only in relation to Armenia, but not vice versa. In any case, the expert community recommends that we recall another "demarche" of Yerevan against Moscow - in May 2013 when Serzh Sargsyan ignored the CSTO summit in Kyrgyzstan despite the fact that Armenia is a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and later the EurAsEC summit in Astana. And they were confident in Yerevan that the Armenian president took this decision primarily because he sought to "avoid" discussions with his CSTO (and EurAsEC) counterparts on the question of forming CSTO peacekeeping forces and on the situation around Afghanistan. The NATO troops will be withdrawn from that country very soon. And experts openly express fears that the state structures in Afghanistan, as has repeatedly happened in the recent history of this state, will simply fail - the country will be overwhelmed by another wave of armed anarchy and war of all against all. The Taleban will appear on the political scene again, which means militants from Afghanistan might break into Central Asian countries. Not only Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, but also Armenia has to delegate its troops to the peacekeeping body that will stop the Taleban on the border. But Sargsyan did not want to assume such obligations. In the summer of 2010, bloody clashes erupted in Osh, Kyrgyzstan. Political circles then also discussed the issue of sending CSTO peacekeepers to the country. And the Armenian media raised a clear storm: why should our conscripts be sent to someone else's war?

All this taken together does not allow us to ignore the question of whether Armenia really is a staunch ally of Russia or simply prefers to use its support and patronage, preferring to forget about its own allied commitments.