Мы живем в обществе, многие члены которого более не представляют свою жизнь без выражения своего мнения в социальных сетях. Возможно, в этом есть определенные преимущества. А недостатком является то, что многие участники бурных обсуждений забыли или вообще не знают, что происходило в Армении, к примеру, 10 или 15 лет назад.

С целью восполнить этот пробел Медиамакс ведет рубрику 5/10/15, которая каждую неделю представляет события, происходившие в Армении, 5, 10  и 15 лет назад.

•    10 YEARS AGO: JANUARY 1-13, 2009

“Admirable commitment”

U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO Kurt Volker remarked in an exclusive interview to Mediamax on January 13 that “the Armenian government showed an admirable commitment to building Armenia-NATO relationship in recent years”.

Kurt Volker

Photo: NATO

“President Serzh Sargsyan, starting from his tenure as Minister of Defense, personally has played a key role in providing the vision and the political will that has made this strengthened partnership possible. The Armenian government has often made the point -- and I believe it is absolutely correct -- that Armenia can have good, cooperative relations with NATO at the same time that it also maintains good relations with Russia,” said Volker.

A very “disappointing” statement

At Mediamax’s request, Kurt Volker also commented on the statement criticizing NATO, which CSTO member states made in August 2008.

“Of course, we found the CSTO statement very disappointing. Fundamentally, we disagree with the CSTO's interpretation of events in Georgia. Would I wish that Armenia had not joined in that unhelpful CSTO message? Yes.  Are there some within the NATO Alliance who take exception to this, and who may see Armenia less favorably as a result? Probably yes. But I also took note that Armenia has itself been clear about its continued commitment to good NATO relations, even after the Georgia crisis.

Kurt Volker and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice

Photo: NATO

I also took note that Armenia has refused to follow Moscow’s lead in recognizing the independence of these two separatist areas. President Sargsyan appointed his National Security Council Secretary to oversee and to deepen NATO (and also European Union) relations. I think this is a sign of Armenia's mature understanding that, notwithstanding the problems of the current moment, there's a deeper need for Armenia to maintain strong partnership relations with the West. The United States supports Armenia in that goal,” said the American diplomat.

Kurt Volker was appointed U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine on July 7, 2017. He coordinates the State Department’s efforts for settling the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

•    5 YEARS AGO: JANUARY 1-13, 2014

A very “vulnerable” agreement

On January 13, 2014, former President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan said he could not understand “the logic behind the government’s decision to conceal the changes of gas price, which led to accumulation of a huge debt”.

“It was obvious that gas was supplied to the republic at a price which considerably exceeded the tariff for consumers. It was clear from the very beginning that the government could not avoid unpleasant explanations as the legislation simply didn’t allow bypassing the parliament. They probably hoped to still reach an agreement with Gazprom on some other schemes, but they failed. As a result, there was a very unpleasant story that caused serious damage to the reputation of the government. I think the parliamentary discussion made a very depressing impression, and not just on me. The government had no distinct explanations to what had happened and sounded extremely unconvincing. It would have been easier to just apologize. Even a part of the MPs from the ruling party voted for the agreement with obvious embarrassment.

Robert Kocharyan

Photo: REUTERS

Of course, it strongly affected the public perception of the agreement on the whole and its legitimacy in particular. The Armenian society is used to unscrupulousness of many politicians, but such open disingenuousness of an institute of power is shocking. Unfortunately, Armenia has never had high level of public trust in governmental bodies (except for the army) and such events destroy the remnants of it. I am sure the gas price rise and measures taken up by the authorities to solve the problem should have been revealed from the very beginning,” Kocharyan said in the interview published on 2rd.am.

The former president also described the clause that allowed the Russian monopolist to hold exclusive rights for operating in Armenia until 2043 as “extremely vulnerable”.

Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller

Photo: REUTERS

“I had 10-year experience of very fruitful cooperation with Gazprom, which resulted in mass gasification of Armenia, considerable expansion of underground storages, construction of the 5th power generating unit of Hrazdan hydropower station and Iran-Armenia gas pipeline, and finally, 10 years of sustainable gas supply at a profitable price. Gazprom never set such terms, even discussing the topic would seem inappropriate. Let’s not forget hundreds of millions of dollars invested in our economy. I don’t know why it happened now, there were no explanations,” said Kocharyan.

Ara Tadevosyan