We See a Threat and Try to Find a Solution; You Choose to Exploit It, Rubinyan Says

YEREVAN — “Our threats come from Azerbaijan because the peace has not yet become irreversible,” National Assembly Speaker Ruben Rubinyan said during the legislature’s August 5 session.

“Our threats come from Azerbaijan because we do not have peace with Azerbaijan—or, more precisely, we have peace, but that peace is not yet irreversible or fully institutionalized,” Rubinyan said. “A peace with Azerbaijan that has not yet become irreversible is clearly and unequivocally a threat to the Republic of Armenia.”

“We also face a threat from Turkey,” he continued. “Having a direct neighbor while maintaining a closed border with that neighbor is, at the very least, an economic threat. The absence of established diplomatic relations is, at the very least, a diplomatic threat.”

According to Rubinyan, Armenia faces other threats as well, including insufficiently diversified economic and security relations, energy sources and transit routes.

Addressing members of the opposition Hayastan Alliance, Rubinyan asked what distinguished the government from the opposition.

“We see a threat and want to eliminate or neutralize it,” he said. “We see that there is no irreversible peace with Azerbaijan, and we want to make that peace irreversible. We see that it has not yet been fully institutionalized, and we want to institutionalize it.”

“With Turkey, we see the closed border and recognize that it is a threat to businesses,” Rubinyan continued. “We are negotiating to reach a solution, and we are also moving forward step by step during that process.”

“That is the difference between us and you,” he said. “We see a threat and try to find a solution. You see a threat and decide to exploit it. The history of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, beginning in 1920, is a history of exploiting threats.”