Armenia has seemed to encounter a parade of strange visits recently. It started on July 7, 2022 with the arrival of Ali Shamkhani, Secretary of the Islamic Republic of Iran's Supreme National Security Council. The next high-ranking guest was William J. Burns, US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director, whose visit was kept secret and was not announced in advance. The news about his visit was first reported by the state-run Russian news agency Sputnik, which obtained this information from the Russian border guard service in Armenia. Literally two days after that, Sergey Naryshkin, Head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service arrived in Yerevan.
The latter's comment about the connection between his and his American counterpart, US CIA Director's visits is quite eloquent. “My visit to Yerevan is definitely not connected with the arrival of my American colleague. But I don’t exclude that his visit is on the contrary connected with mine,” he stated. His other statement is also noteworthy, "Russia has enough strength and resources to protect its allies and friends in difficult times."
It can be concluded that, according to him, difficult days are ahead for Armenia, and Russia is ready to protect us. It is interesting that this is not said by the Russian President, Prime Minister or Minister of Defense, but by the head of the foreign intelligence service, which implies that the "threats" are of an intelligence nature. In their speech, the security officials of both Iran and the US highlighted regional developments and warned of possible dangers caused by them.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Tehran on July 19 for the Tripartite Summit of the leaders of Russia, Iran and Turkey to discuss the Syrian settlement issue, as well as separate bilateral meetings of the leaders, should also be viewed in the logic of the processes that have been obviously revived in the South Caucasus region. The Foreign Minister of Syria was also in Iran on those days. There are very acute, extremely important issues for discussion, said the Statement for media disseminated in relation to the meeting of the leaders of the three countries.
It is notable that the described visits and meetings were preceded by a statement by Armenian Prime Minister, which went unnoticed. It was about Armenia's initiative to create a foreign intelligence service, without specifying in which countries the future intelligence employees of Armenia would operate, what priorities they would have, who and against whom they would "befriend". These are important questions, which are especially interesting based on the review of Naryshkin, who linked the purpose of the US CIA director's visit to his visit.
If there is a problem of regulating the field of intelligence in Armenia, we must take into account that Armenians have a large Diaspora, where there are religious and national institutions that were established in those countries a long time ago. That is, there is a favorable ground for having good, informed detectives. Let's not forget that during the communist era, the Armenian Diaspora was one of the forges of Soviet spies. And the fact that Armenia should have an external intelligence structure (also a counter-intelligence one, by the way) was already clear during the 44-day war. Its necessity is extremely demanded also in the current conditions, when the opening of the borders with Turkey and Azerbaijan can lead to complex security problems inside the country.
Thus, the whole world is "in full swing", international security systems have broken down, new regional military conflicts are predicted, which are fraught with the danger of turning into big wars in the face of the collapse of US hegemony. The world is once again dividing into competing blocs, and the fate of globalization is in question. Every country, even with limited abilities, can influence geopolitical arrangements, becoming a part of new communications or an area that disrupts them.
The role of Armenia is highlighted, taking into account the reality of being at the crossroads of new North-South and East-West communications. The significance of the mentioned visits should be considered from this point of view. And what is most important here: will Armenia be able to turn from an area which was "toothless," an international object into a subject, even a small one, and advance its interests in this international confusion? Let's not rush ahead of time.