The Economist: Looks Like Armenia Has Mastered Levitation

PanARMENIAN.Net - Despite the war, the economic collapse that went with it and a terrible earthquake that preceded it, Armenia seems to have levitated out of trouble. The Economist writes in an article titled The Art of Levitation: the Caucasian Version, Armenia benefits from an indulgence not afforded to pro-Western Georgia. Per person, Armenia is one of the biggest recipients of American aid (thanks to the powerful Diaspora there, which remembers vividly the massacres of 1915). Yet that American help does not trouble Russia, which has a military base in Armenia.



Some in Russia want the Armenians to take sides against the Georgians, perhaps by stirring up the Armenian minority there. "We refuse to choose," says Vartan Oskanian, the foreign minister. Indeed: alienating Georgia would be suicidal.



But the Kremlin's leverage is growing. Russian firms already control the energy sector and want a greater stake elsewhere. Mr Oskanian says "our needs today are too dire" to worry about future risks. Azerbaijan's hydrocarbons windfall makes it sound confident, even bellicose, stoking Armenian reliance on Russia.



"American interest in the pipelines that link the Caspian to the Mediterranean, doglegging round Armenia, mean that renewed fighting would echo far beyond the Caucasus. Internationally sponsored talks about Karabakh limp on—Mr Oskanian met his Azerbaijani counterpart this week—and Western diplomats try to sound upbeat. But a deal, or even a fudge that would at least allow normal trade relations, looks all but impossible. Sporadic shooting continues at the dividing line," the newspaper writes, reports InoSMI.