LET’S GET READY TO GET COMPENSATION IN THE VISIBLE FUTURE
Lragir.am
26 April 06
In the visible future Turkey cannot have a positive approach to the
Armenian genocide, but the United States will recognize the Armenian
genocide and the European Union will put forward the recognition
of the Armenian genocide as a stipulation for Turkey’s membership,
announced Ruben Safrastyan, the head of the Department of Turkey of
the Institute of History, NAS, April 26, in a round-table meeting
“Global Processes of Recognition of the Armenian Genocide. Prospects
of Recognition of the Genocide”.
Safrastyan says Turkey is implementing a policy of pressure, trying to
reach adoption of decisions in Armenia that favor Turkey and offers
three conditions for the establishment of diplomatic relations:
borders, Karabakh, recognition of the genocide. Ruben Safrastyan
disagrees to a recently repeated viewpoint that Europe recognizes the
Armenian genocide not out of sympathy for Armenians but to prevent
Turkey’s membership to the EU. It is true that the stipulations of
the West for Turkey are determined by their interests and not those
of the Armenians’, but “public opinion in Europe changed dramatically
in the past two or three years. The intelligentsia is increasingly
often considering condemning Turkey.
If Germany admitted its faults, why shouldn’t Turkey do the same?”
According to Safrastyan, public opinion in Turkey has changed too,
but very slowly and very little. “People have started talking about the
genocide and in such a totalitarian country public opinion is opposed
to the government,” states the expert on Turkish studies. There is
nothing we could do, it is their turn to understand and condemn,
thinks Ruben Safrastyan, and enumerates the spheres where we, the
Republic of Armenia, have to act. “We have to shift the struggle for
the recognition of the genocide to the plane of the international
law and think about getting recovery. And the recovery can be in
different forms, including territory,” thinks Ruben Safrastyan. For
the line of struggle, it should be decided in an all-Armenian rally
which also must be organized by the leadership of Armenia.
Another expert on Turkish studies Lusineh Sahakyan, assistant of
the head of the Department of Turkish Studies of Yerevan State
University, says the recognition of the genocide has a strategic
importance for us. Probably in Turkey they also understand this
because Lusineh Sahakyan says Turkey has a sophisticated arsenal and
a scientific mechanism of denying the Armenian genocide, starting
from historical falsification, cleansing of Turkish archives since
1918, to manipulating strategic partnership with the Unites States
and breaking commercial relations with countries which recognize the
Armenian genocide.
The Armenians do not have such an arsenal for the recognition of the
Armenian genocide. Ruben Safrastyan finds, however, that it would
be better if others spoke about the recognition of the genocide for
Turkey not to say that Armenians are repeating their lies.