Keeping good relations with Iran has vital importance for Armenia

PanARMENIAN.Net - "Armenia - the ally of Iran and the United States, demonstrates how the tension between Tehran and Washington may disturb the diplomatic balance in the region. While the tension between Iran and the West approaches its boiling point, it is becoming harder for Armenia to agree with frequently conflicting alliances within her rather complicated circle. Armenia's fragile situation illustrates the potentially destabilizing consequences between the West and Iran not only in the Middle East, but also in the South Caucasus," says the article entitled "Between Iran and the U.S." published in The Christian Science Monitor.



The author of the article thinks that a new global attention to the region increases the local tension, which put the states in the center of competing interests. Russia, the United States, European Union, Turkey and Iran make important political and economic stakes on the region.



"Keeping good relations with Iran has vital importance for Armenia, a tiny and isolated nation. Her main borders with Turkey and Azerbaijan are closed, and up to this moment the country is in the situation of cold war with Azerbaijan because of Nagorno Karabakh, a non-recognized state of ethnic Armenians, which legally remains a part of Muslim Azerbaijan.



But the United States is Armenia's main donor and the only financier of the humanitarian aid to Karabakh. During the coming 5 years Armenia will receive $235 million financial assistance via President George Bush's international development project known as Millennium Challenge Account. Analysts say a military conflict with Iran will be catastrophic for the region, and a lot of people in Yerevan fear that its consequences will have their reflection on Iran's South Caucasian neighbors - Armenia and Azerbaijan. In their parts politicians fear that if this conflicts does not reach military interference, increase of tension between Iran and the West may disturb the thin diplomatic balance in the region," the newspaper reports.