In the last two years, Armenia has undertaken a major foreign policy step by signing up to the Eurasian Economic Union, and by not pursuing the Association Agreement with the European Union. The Armenian authorities explained its decision by ‘security’ reasons.
The Civilitas Foundation conducted a public telephone poll with 600 residents of Armenia, randomly selected all the marzes (regions) of the country and Yerevan. The objectives of the poll are: to identify the attitude of Armenia’s population on the presence of foreign military bases in Armenia, to identify the underlying factors of this attitude, to compare the attitude towards foreign military presence with the public’s perception of ‘national security’, and finally to compare their perceptions of national security with the conceptual definitions of national security.
The telephone poll included questions aimed at identifying the population’s level of tolerance towards foreign military units in Armenia, to what extent can these units contribute to ensuring Armenia’s national security and under which conditions is the Armenian population ready to provide its territory for the deployment of foreign military units.
55 percent of the population finds it acceptable that another state’s or international (intergovernmental) institution’s military base be deployed in Armenia.
34 percent finds it unacceptable, 9 percent don’t know, and 2 percent refuse to answer.
Half of the Armenia’s population believes that, in general, the presence of any foreign state’s or international (intergovernmental) institution’s military bases in Armenia is favorable for Armenia’s national security, while 21 percent believes that their presence is a hindering factor to Armenia’s national security.
There are 3,000 Russian soldiers officially reported to be stationed at the 102nd Military Base located in Gyumri, Armenia, close to the Armenia-Turkey border.
Besides, Russian border guard units deployed along Armenia-Turkey and Armenia-Iran state border.
Armenia is a founding member of the the Collective Security Treaty Organization, an intergovernmental military alliance, acting as counterpart to the NATO alliance, which was signed on 15 May 1992.
