Is integration into the Conference of Landlocked Developing Countries necessary for Armenia?

PanARMENIAN.Net - Nonetheless, the United Nations is ready to help Armenia join the Conference of Landlocked Developing Countries. According to Cheick Sidi Diarra, UN Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States, Armenia's integration into the Conference will help the country enjoy international assistance emerging from the priorities of the "Almaty Programme of Action, 2003", confirmed by the UN and representatives of the international community.

There are four main priorities in the "Almaty Programme of Action, 2003", among which creating favourable conditions on the national level for cutting the prime costs of goods. Second group of priorities includes lending by the donor states know-how and money to landlocked and transit countries for infrastructure and policy improvement. The third group includes giving preferential treatment to landlocked countries' goods, making them more competitive, especially if the country is not a member of the World Trade Organization. And, finally, the fourth group includes stir up and expansion of international assistance directed to reducing external debt and attracting foreign investments that would increase the countries' attractiveness.

"Armenia should define for itself the national priorities of developing transport infrastructures and improve regional relations, to which the UN attaches great importance in the context of growing regional cooperation," Diarra said.

All this is good of course, but integration into this Conference can hardly change the format of regional cooperation, which, on the whole, does not exist at all. Out of the four countries bordering on Armenia three (Georgia, Turkey and Iran) have an access to the sea and they can be viewed as transit countries. There is also Azerbaijan that does not have a passage to the World Ocean, but, first, there is the Caspian Sea, and, second, it has oil which is referred to any time when regional cooperation and the perspectives of its development are mentioned.

As for the other three countries, it should be admitted that Armenia has developed strategic partnership with none of them. The August events proved that Georgia is not a very reliable partner in the sense of transit, not to mention the other spheres. Iran is rather a problematic country now and it would be quite myopic to set hopes on her on an international scale. As for Turkey, Armenia can hardly establish normal relations with her even if the issue of the Genocide is put aside. As we have repeatedly mentioned, the main point is the recognition of Turkey's present borders, because of which Armenia is now deprived of a passage to the sea. Happened what usually happens in the UN: good intentions and declarations are always built on desires alone, in complete absence of appropriate instruments to materialize these statements. Armenia's membership in another international organization can hardly change relations in the Region. We shall only have to make payments, which will strike us, and even in the long-term perspective will not do us any good. Armenia has been a member of the UN since 1991, and from then on the United Nations has been making resolutions against the right of the Nagorno-Karabakh people to self-determination. And what about the scandalous story with prohibition of Genocide documents and photos in the United Nations edifice? Probably we should not be so trusting towards the initiatives of the UN Charter, which have neither political nor economic basis. By the way, there are 13 more European countries that have no access to the sea. The point lies in our neighbours, whom, unfortunately, we do not choose.

Karine Ter-Sahakyan