In U.S. talks, Armenia should focus on bilateral agenda

by Hovhannes Nikoghosyan

Published: Friday April 09, 2010

Renovated Marriott Armenia Hotel is probably most prominent (Armenian-)American investment in Armenia. Courtesy photo

Washington - First Armenian presidential visit to Washington in nine years is now being planned as President Serge Sargsyan has been invited to the Nuclear Security Summit, organized by President Barack Obama on April 12-13.

What would this visit seek to accomplish? The agenda of talks is now being drafted, and this commentary is intended to offer a few suggestions.

First a historical resume.

Last time, an Armenian President visited the White House was in April 2001, when President Robert Kocharyan met President George W. Bush together with Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev to discuss Karabakh.

Those talks were preceded by the highly anticipated negotiations in Key West, Florida mediated by then Secretary of State Colin Powell, but that effort ultimately proved unsuccessful.

Although this will be President Sargsyan's first visit in presidential capacity, he has been a relatively frequent guest in Washington in other capacities: as Prime Minister in 2007, Defense Minister in 2000 and 2006 and National Security Minister before that.

While the normalization process with Turkey and to a lesser extent Karabakh talks continue to dominate the Armenian news cycle, this will also be an opportunity for administrations in Washington and Yerevan to reflect over bilateral ties.

So far, the major driver of bilateral agenda has been the Armenian Diaspora, which proved successful to advance genocide resolutions and extend annual foreign appropriations to Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh.

Surely, there has been much positive impact of Diaspora on U.S. policy towards Armenia. Besides the annual financial assistance to both Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh, the list of obvious and major successes can be extended with the Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act endorsed in 1992. This provision prohibited certain types of direct U.S. assistance to the government of Azerbaijan until it has ended its aggression and lifted its blockades against Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh. However, it was waived after September 11, 2001 attacks against U.S.

More recently, Armenia was also gifted a $235.65 million grant by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) - a five-year plan to help reduce rural poverty in Armenia, since reduced by about $65 million due to the Armenian government's post-election performance.

What can be done to develop American-Armenian ties further?

Most importantly, so far the relations are trustworthy. To illustrate this one should take a look at developing Armenian-Iranian cooperation, where U.S. has been understanding of Armenia's need to smooth the impact of Turkish and Azeri blockades upon the economy.

In military aspects, Armenia participates even if in modest contingents in U.S.-led state-building efforts in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. Other instances of military and security co-operation have been carried out in NATO framework and bilaterally.

Armenia has also welcomed U.S. role as a mediator in the Karabakh conflict and facilitator of normalization process with Turkey.

Now, facing an impasse on Armenian-Turkish track, it's time to concentrate more upon on bilateral ties.

With this, the upcoming visit of Armenian president should be a great opportunity to talk about ways of spurring U.S. investments in Armenia.

While much of the necessary "legal umbrella" for economic and trade relations exists, and Armenia has been a WTO member since 2003, bilateral trade and economic relations have been lackluster. There has been no significant American investment in Armenian economy.

There are of course objective reasons for this, Armenia is a small market located far from the United States. Additional problems arise from morphing of political and economic establishments in Armenia, or in other words - corruption - providing ground for domestic tensions and occasional instability in Armenia.

US of course should keep its eyes on Armenian democracy and human rights record, and always point at the challenges and homework there.

But none of this implies that all opportunities for bilateral cooperation have been explored or exhausted.