The incident between Yerevan and Tbilisi is over, and no global scandal is expected; things will calm down in the near future, leader of the New Times party (Armenia) Aram Karapetyan has told VERELQ.
A meeting of the speaker of the Armenian parliament Galust Sahakyan and speaker of the South Ossetian parliament Anatoly Bibilov caused a wave of indignation from official Tbilisi. Yesterday, Armenia’s Ambassador Yuri Vardanyan was summoned to the Georgian Foreign Ministry to give explanations. Besides, there was a phone conversation between Armenia’s Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan and his Georgian counterpart Irakli Garibashvili. Georgia’s Ambassador to Yerevan Tengiz Sharmanashvili paid a visit to the Armenian Foreign Ministry. However, a spokesperson for the National Assembly of Armenia informed that the meeting was of private nature, not an official one.
As Aram Karapetyan believes, Sahakyan probably could not predict such a result of his meeting with Bibilov. “We once again made sure that only politicians should be acting in politics. Sahakyan could not even suppose that the Georgian party would stir up such a controversy because he had greeted and said a few words to Bibilov,” the politician says.
Besides, according to Karapetyan, Georgia believes somewhere deep in its mind that it was a walkout from Armenia’s side. “We do remember that they acted rather inappropriately regarding the issue of the Armenian Genocide recognition. They even refused to discuss a statement on it at the parliament, sent a low-ranking official to Yerevan on April 24. Tbilisi now believes it is a response from Armenia. Most probably, they also think that the walkout was to some extent coordinated with Moscow,” Karapetyan notes.
Armenian political analyst, deputy director of the Caucasus Institute Sergey Minasyan also believes that no serious outcomes should be expected. For 25 years of independence, Armenian and Georgian political elites have got used to having contradicting stance on regional conflict situations and unrecognized state formations, he says.
“At the same time, they have been consistent in trying not to misuse those contradictions, not to make up speculations, as they comprehended that they have also common goals and tasks, for dealing with which they need coordination. One should keep it in mind that the Armenian party some time ago showed rather negative response to some pro-Azerbaijani statements and actions taken by Georgia’s ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili,” the experts reminds.