YEREVAN. – President Serzh Sargsyan’s announcement, on September 3, that Armenia will join the Customs Union, closed the country’s door to Europe. But, fortunately, the door is not locked.   

Regional Studies Center (RSC) Director, political analyst Richard Giragosian noted the aforesaid at a press conference on Tuesday. 

Giragosian added that new attempts are made to develop new boundaries for relations between Armenia and Europe. 

The analyst, however, pointed to two challenges before Armenia. First, now the European Union (EU) looks at Armenia in a different way.  

“The result of September 3 was that Armenia has become more insincere and non-competitive in the way the decision was made,” Giragosian argued.  

As per the political analyst, the second challenge is that the EU is changing; many within the EU say that Armenia and some EU Eastern Partnership countries are not worth the political capital which is invested in them.    

Richard Giragosian also spoke about Armenia’s several other foreign policy challenges in the coming year.  

In terms of the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the RSC director stated that no changes are expected in connection with the territories, and the real challenge is that Azerbaijan—and not Armenia—should change its approach.    

As per Giragosian, not much should be expected next year in Armenian-Turkish relations, too.

“The Turkish party will attempt to conduct an insincere policy in the same way. The Turkish government itself should decide how to develop the relations and what it should do. Armenia has a stronger policy with Turkey. [But] Turkey remains a hostage of Azerbaijan in terms of Armenian-Turkish relations,” Richard Giragosian concluded.