Former President Kocharian Criticizes Armenian Foreign Policy

Former president Robert Kocharian (left) with current president Serzh Sarkisian (right) at an official ceremony outside Yerevan in 2008 (Source: Photolure)

YEREVAN (RFE/RL)””Former President Robert Kocharian has again criticized the Armenian government, saying that President Serzh Sarkisian’s unexpected decision in 2013 to abandon a planned Association Agreement with the European Union seriously damaged Armenia’s international reputation.

In an interview with Germany’s Deutsche Welle broadcaster published on Wednesday, Kocharian stressed that Sarkisian should not have pursued such a far-reaching accord with the EU in the first place in view of Armenia’s close relations with Russia. He seemed to imply that the Russian backlash against that European integration drive is what forced Yerevan to join the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU).

“I did not support the signing of the kind of an Association Agreement with the EU that was on the table,”