Azernews.Az

By Rashid Shirinov

The economic and social situation in Armenia continues to remain terrible and deteriorates every year. The poor South Caucasus nation faces a bunch of problems – inflation, unemployment, corruption, poverty, weak economy, low foreign investment, falling exports and many others. Nevertheless, Armenia is the first most militarized country in Europe, and third in the world, according to the Global Militarization Index 2016 analysis. This suggests that the country's authorities turn a blind eye on the problems of the population – the government's main goal is to militarize Armenia as much as possible.

Armenian media have recently reported that spending on education and healthcare will be further reduced next year, but the defense spending will, vice versa, increase, according to the draft budget for 2018. In this regard, Armenia has all the prerequisites to soon become even first or second in the militarization ranking.

All this clearly demonstrate the mendacity of the official Yerevan, which claims that Armenia allegedly wants peace in the region, but not war. Armenia’s belligerent position is the main stumble block that impedes the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Due to the fact that Armenia is preparing for war, but not for peace, Azerbaijan has to improve its Armed Forces as well. The continuing occupation of 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s lands by Armenia and every-day provocations on the front line make Azerbaijan spend much funds for defense. Nevertheless, Azerbaijan has a strong economy and the country is successful in many international projects, but the same cannot be said for Armenia. Due to its groundless territorial claims against neighbors, Armenia has turned into a black sheep of the region, and this causes even more damages to the country’s economy.

The vast difference between the two countries’ economies can be easily seen from their foreign debt rates. Azerbaijan has strategic currency reserves of some $42 billion, and this is 3.6 times higher than the country’s foreign debt. In contrast, Armenia’s foreign debt may exceed the 60-percent threshold of the country’s GDP by the end of the year.

Moreover, the number of Armenia’s citizens living below the poverty line is growing. As many as 76 percent of the country’s population is considered poor, according to the World Bank. Meanwhile, the number of people leaving the country for good is also growing. There were about 3,633,300 people in Armenia when it gained independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but now this figure is only 2,979,900. This downward trend is still ongoing.

These few facts provide a clear explanation of the current social and economic situation in Armenia. There is no doubt that all these problems would not show up or would be, at least, not so serious if Armenia would not start the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict against Azerbaijan. The conflict was and continues to be the main factor that ‘kills’ Armenia, but the country’s authorities, instead of putting an end to it in order to revive Armenia, continue irrational militarization of the country.

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

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