MFA’s “Time Machine” and Aid Sent to Syria

During the days of humanitarian crisis in Aleppo (end of September and beginning of October), it became known that Armenia also provides humanitarian aid to Syria.

However, information on aid provided to Syria by Armenia was accompanied by some uncertainties. For instance, according to information received from Aleppo, the humanitarian aid from Armenia was not sent to the Syrian civil airport. Rather, it was sent to the Russian military base in Syria, and the aid was distributed to the local population by Russian soldiers, rather than the Armenian consulate.

In order to understand the nature of humanitarian aid provided to Syria by Armenia, “Union of Informed Citizens” NGO sent a written enquiry to the RA Ministry of Foreign Affairs. However, the response of the latter agency did not bring any clarity in the situation. On the contrary, it gave ground to assume that the RA MFA possesses a real “time machine”.

So, in response to our enquiry, we were informed that the aid sent to Syria on October 4 and 5 was based on RA Government Decree N 1025-N of October 6.

This suggests that there was no government decision when Armenia was sending aid to Syria on October 4 and 5, and it was based on a decision to be adopted later on. In law, there is a practice of application of an adopted legal act for backdated cases… but the application of a legal act that has not been adopted yet is a new say in law all over the world.

As we know, aid is not purely “moral”, and it includes quite a number of real products for which the state pays, procures them from producers or suppliers. Naturally, funds are needed to make the aforementioned procurements. And allocation of funds can be done only based on a government decision.

Hence, it turns out that Armenia sent aid to Syria, by either obtaining goods and promising to pay for them later, or we can assume that there is a complete chaos in that field.

P.S. In the near future, we will also address issues related to distribution of that aid.