RAFFI HOVANNISIAN CALLED ON HIS TURKISH COLLEAGUES TO BRAVELY FACE THEIR PAST

ArmRadio.am
30.04.2007 14:50

Raffi K. Hovannisian, who was participating in the Brussels Forum for
the second consecutive year, offered comments at the Forum’s opening
session, asserting that in direct furtherance of the European-Atlantic
community’s pursuit of universal benchmarks of human rights and
the rule of law, as well as common foreign and security policies,
the Western world must also practice its own values by ensuring
equal application in Europe and its neighborhood of its principles,
precedents, and standards of accountability to all instances of
conflict resolution – from Kosovo to Karabakh – and of genocide past
and present.

He also participated in specialized sessions on Iran, Russia,
and Turkey, urging his Turkish colleagues to meet the challenge of
European values and membership by bravely facing their past and the
collective legacy of the great Armenian dispossession, and to ask
themselves whether Turkey will not lose Europe if the current mindset
remains in power.

In the margins of this world conclave of movers and shakers,
Hovannisian discussed both domestic and international developments
with Secretary General Javier Solana of the European Union; Belgian
Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt; Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt; US
Senator Bob Bennett; US Congressman Jim Costa of Fresno; NATO Secretary
General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer; Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay;
European Commissioner for Enlargement Dr. Olli Rehn; Justice Stephen
Breyer of the US Supreme Court; and Grigoriy Yavlinskiy, member of
the Russian State Duma and chairman of the Democratic Party Yabloko.