Expert: “Syrian conflict creates hazard for Armenia”
Parallel to the escalation of Syrian conflict, the Syrian Armenian and especially Aleppo Armenian community will split. As a result of it flow of Syrian Armenians to Armenia will increase, which will create additional economic problems for the country in this phase, as providing them with accommodation and jobs is very difficult, said Mushegh Khudaverdyan, turkologist and expert on regional affairs during the press conference held today. He added that the second hazard threatening Armenia is the broadening of influence zones of ISIS. “Armenia is a Christian country and consequently not a favorable country for extremists, and the more the zones of the ISIS actions get closer to the borders of Armenia, the more the dangers coming from them will grow,” he highlighted. Besides, when voicing anti Christian calls, the extremists destroy also Armenian churches. According to Mushegh Khudaverdyan, the struggle in Syria is like a mini world war, which is fought both by the western blog, that is NATO, between Europe and the USA, and the eastern blog- between Russia, China and Iran. The role of Turkey shouldn’t be forgotten in this context; it has its interesting stance, “Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is trying to lead its politics independent of the USA and show that Turkey is the leader of the region, but at the same time clearly realizing that if Turkey doesn’t serve the interests of NATO in Syria, it will not remain in the NATO even a day. 19 military bases of the USA in Turkey tie the hands of Erdogan to freely act in Syria,” he highlighted. According to the expert, the Turkish side is struggling against union of Syria’s and Iraq’s Kurds, “At the same time Yeprat operation showed that the territory of Syria is separated between the NATO and the eastern blog, and in case of any side’s infringement, they carry out counterattacks against each other,” noted Mushegh Khudaverdyan. He thinks that Geneva negotiations on Syrian issue are imitation of reconciliation and the recent events can prove it, “The fact of chemical attack hasn’t been proved yet, as it is one of the working styles of NATO to blame the other side for having and using chemical weapon or weapons of mass destruction.” “This step of Trump shows that he repeats the actions of Obama’s and Bush’s administration, which aim at escalating the situation, and the leadership in the USA is interested in increase of tension, irrespective of who the President will be. Trump, like his predecessors, is inclined to broaden the USA’s influence zones at the expense of eastern influence zones,” highlighted the expert, adding that in this sense Russia-American relations will always be tense and unstable, as long as the USA is trying to expand its influence at the expense of Russian influence zones and that reconciliation cannot be reached in the near future.”
