DASHNAK LEADER WANTS CAUTIOUS LINE ON NATO
By Ruben Meloyan

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Dec 8 2006

Armenia should exercise caution in forging closer links with NATO
because of its strained relationship with alliance member Turkey,
a leader of the governing Armenian Revolutionary Federation
(Dashnaktsutyun) said on Friday.

Deputy parliament speaker Vahan Hovannisian claimed that Ankara has
long been acting against "Armenian national and state interests"
and may use NATO for that purpose.

"We have many unresolved issues with Turkey," he told an international
conference in Yerevan. "We must not let Turkey put those unresolved
problems on NATO’s shoulders. We don’t need that. We have a problem
with Turkey, not NATO."

Hovannisian and his nationalist party, a member of Armenia’s governing
coalition, regards Turkey as a grave threat to Armenia’s national
security. Dashnaktsutyun also takes the view that Turkish recognition
of the 1915 Armenian genocide must be the main prerequisite for
normalizing relations between the two nations.

President Robert Kocharian and his administration as a whole favor
a softer line, saying that Ankara should establish diplomatic
relations with Yerevan and open the Turkish-Armenian border without
any preconditions. But they share Dashnaktsutyun’s position, reaffirmed
by Hovannisian, that membership of NATO should not be on the Armenian
foreign policy agenda in the near future, despite growing public
support for it.

Yerevan is instead trying to step up cooperation with the U.S.-led
alliance under an "individual partnership action plan," or IPAP,
launched earlier this year. Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian discussed
the implementation of Armenia’s IPAP with NATO’s Secretary General
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer in Brussels on Wednesday.

Speaking at the Yerevan conference, Oskanian’s deputy Arman Kirakosian
said closer ties with NATO will not only strengthen Armenia’s security
but also facilitate its "European integration."

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress