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Expert: Armenia is at risk of remaining in debt hole, political isolation

26 July 2017 15:45 (UTC+04:00)
Expert: Armenia is at risk of remaining in debt hole, political isolation

By Rashid Shirinov

Armenia's economy remains critical for a long time, demonstrating unbelievably low indices each year. The situation in the country further deteriorates, as Armenia lacks any governmental program to change it.

Armenia suffocated in a bunch of unresolved problems in the country ranging from increasing emigration, corruption, inflation, unemployment, poverty, falling exports, demographics and many others.

The Armenian leadership continues to take huge debts from abroad, despite the state debt has already exceeded $6 million. However, nothing changes in a positive direction in Armenia – people continue to live in poverty. Unofficial Armenian sources note that the number of poor in Armenia has long ago exceeded one million people – that is more than a third of the country’s population.

Alexander Okhrimenko, a well-known Ukrainian expert, believes that such a depressing situation in this South Caucasian country is not very surprising – it should rather be taken as a pattern.

“The Armenian leadership does not think about the problems that have concerned the poor Armenian nation for many years. Of course, first and foremost they relate to the socio-economic situation, which is in a poor condition,” the expert said in an interview with day.az.

Okhrimenko stressed that the Armenian leadership ignores the solving of internal problems, hiding behind alleged solving of important political issues.

For example, it conducts so-called “referendum” in the occupied Azerbaijani lands, stages provocations in the border villages of Azerbaijan, resulting in the deaths of innocent civilians. “All these steps are taken by the authorities in order to divert people’s attention from internal problems,” the expert believes.

“[Armenian president] Sargsyan’s only objective is to retain power at any cost. Therefore, he tries to use Karabakh as a protective shield,” said Okhrimenko. “Thus, there is no reason to believe that the domestic economic situation in Armenia will change in a positive direction in the near future.”

The economist believes that no positive changes in Armenia should be expected as long as its leadership continues the policy of aggression against Azerbaijan, hindering the negotiating process over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in any way.

“Therefore, due to the ‘efforts’ of the current regime, Armenia is at a serious risk of remaining in the debt hole and political isolation for a long time,” concluded Okhrimenko.

It is obvious that one of the main reasons of Armenia’s deplorable state is the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Due to the conflict, Armenia has no economic relations and transport links with Azerbaijan and Turkey, and there are also difficulties in relations with Georgia that separates Armenia from its main economic partner – Russia. The conflicts with neighbors and territorial claims do not allow the country to join any regional project and gain any benefits.

Thus, Armenia continues to remain in a deep swamp, and the country’s government doesn’t take necessary steps to change the situation. As a result, the Armenian people continue to suffer from the incompetence of their authorities, and life in the country deteriorates even further.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz

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