United States Adopts Cautious Stance on Armenia's Democratization

The United States has stepped up efforts to promote democratization in former Soviet states in recent years. Accordingly, opposition leaders in Armenia are hopeful of receiving Washington's support for a renewed push to force President Robert Kocharian's administration from power in Yerevan. But US officials seem anxious to squelch such expectations, insisting that they harbor no regime-change ambitions for Armenia.

During a visit to Georgia in mid May, US President George W. Bush offered effusive praise for the Rose Revolution led by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Some politicians and pundits in neighboring Armenia interpreted Bush's statements as a thinly veiled call for democratically oriented regime change throughout the Caucasus. Media outlets in Yerevan have since speculated on who might be Washington's preferred successor to Kocharian. [For additional information see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Members of the Bush administration now adamantly deny they want political turnover in Yerevan. "We are not in the revolution business," a senior Bush administration official said in an interview. The official went on to downplay Washington's role in the recent revolutionary trend, saying the United States was "not responsible" for the successful popular uprisings in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. The official noted that the United States had maintained good relations with the toppled leaders of the three ex-Soviet states, Georgia's Eduard Shevardnadze, Ukraine's Leonid Kuchma and Kyrgyzstan's Askar Akayev. "We didn't do anything to trigger those events," he said.

The senior administration official indicated that recent statements made by President Bush should not be interpreted as a call for street protests, or other anti-government action that undermines stability in the region. "The [Armenian] opposition should not launch a dangerous revolution or seek to humiliate the [Kocharian] regime," the senior administration official said, adding that Washington now favors an "evolutionary process" of democratization.

Officials at the State Department made a similar point, saying that the United States supports only the use of "legal means" in any effort to bring about political change. US enthusiasm for regime change seems to have cooled markedly since the May 13 violence in Andijan, Uzbekistan. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Armenia's leading opposition parties have never recognized the legitimacy of Kocharian's disputed re-election in 2003, and they have maintained a boycott of the country's parliament. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Apparently encouraged by Bush administration rhetoric, opposition leaders have sent signals about organizing another round of mass rallies aimed at forcing Kocharian to step down. The first opposition protest effort stalled in 2004 in the face of stiff governmental resistance. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Of late, opposition rhetoric has taken on a more aggressive tone. Embracing a pro-Western foreign policy agenda, some opposition politicians have gone as far as to call for Armenia's withdrawal from the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty, and the country's accession to NATO. Russia and Armenia have traditionally enjoyed a special strategic relationship. [For additional information see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Aram Sarkisian, the outspoken leader of Armenia's most radical opposition party called Hanrapetutiun (Republic), traveled to Washington in early June for meetings with White House and State Department officials. He said the trip reinforced his resolve to carry out a "revolution." Sarkisian and other top opposition leaders feel that they can count on Washington's support in their revolutionary endeavors.

"That is a dangerous and false assumption," countered a State Department official. He and other American officials indicated that the US government does not regard regime change as a necessary condition for Armenia's democratization.

According to Cory Welt, a Caucasus and Central Asia analyst at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, such statements can be taken at face value. "From all indications that I have seen, Armenia is definitely not a target [for the Bush administration]," he said. "They tolerate the current regime in Yerevan."

Kocharian's government drew praise from two US senators who visited Yerevan recently. Sen. Charles Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, professed to be "very impressed with the democratic reforms and economic development that have taken place in Armenia." Earlier, Sen. Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican, downplayed Armenia's troubled history of tainted elections. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. "Elections alone don't make democracy," he told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on May 31.

Coleman's remarks seemed at odds with the strong US criticism of the last Armenian presidential election in 2003. The State Department said at the time that Armenian authorities "missed an important opportunity to advance democratization."

The apparent contradiction between Bush's pro-democracy rhetoric and statements by other US officials makes it difficult to predict how Washington might react if the next round of Armenian national elections, due to occur in 2007, are plagued by irregularities. "I don't think the United States knows exactly what it wants right now, and that's part of the problem," said Welt, the political analyst.