MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA
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PRESS AND INFORMATION DEPARTMENT
Telephone: +37410. 544041 ext. 202
Fax: +37410. 562543
Email: press@mfa.am
PRESS RELEASE
Minister Oskanian’s visit to Brussels
At the invitation of the Boghossian Foundation, Minister Vartan Oskanian
traveled to Brussels to participate in the launch of the Boghossian
Foundation’s plans for a cultural center bridging east and west, to be
located in Brussels.
On September 13, Minister Oskanian joined the President of the Belgian
Senate as well as dozens of ambassadors and Belgian officials who had come
to celebrate the renovation of the Villa Empain, a Belgian architectural
masterpiece, that will serve as a center of dialogue and cultural exchange.
Following remarks by Jean Boghossian of Belgium, who together with his
brother Albert of Switzerland, have founded the Foundation, the Minister was
welcomed by Armand de Decker, President of the Belgian Senate, who spoke
extensively about Armenia’s contributions to the patrimony of world culture,
as well as the place that the Villa Empain holds in the city’s architectural
and social history.
Minister Oskanian concluded the formal program with comments about the
importance of the Boghossian initiative, especially in light of the Armenian
tradition of dialogue and bridge among civilizations and cultures. The
entire text of the Minister’s remarks appears below.
PRESS RELEASE
Minister Vartan Oskanian’s Remarks at the Boghossian Foundation Villa Empain
Brussels, Belgium
September 13, 2007
Today I am proud to witness the Boghossian Foundation come forward as a
catalyst for a serious exploration of common ground among people. The
Boghossian story is the typical Armenian journey — from Armenia to Lebanon
to Belgium and Switzerland. Armenia, an old nation with a new state, has
been a champion and symbol of dialogue and cooperation through the
centuries. As the Villa Empain becomes the center of shared creativity, the
"embassy" of oriental cultures in the capital of Europe that you want to
make it, you will have realized your dream, and all of us from Brussels to
Yerevan will profit from your vision.
As a small people, serving as the perennial buffer between empires, on the
most trampled path on earth, Armenians have become living witnesses of the
benefit of dialogue between and within cultures. We have been engaged in
that international exchange for ages. Today, we in Armenia are among its
greatest promoters, especially in our neighborhood. Our Diaspora, living as
it does across borders, is both the means and the beneficiary of
international exchange.
As I started to think about Jean and Albert and what they are daring to do
here, I realized that diplomats and artists have much in common. We are both
the beneficiaries of dialogue, and perhaps because of that, we feel
compelled to continually search for non-traditional ways to approach the
overarching issue of our time: living at peace in a pluralist world.
Diplomats and artists, like the societies which we represent, live in
neighborhoods that are not going to change, with memories that are not going
to go away, and with experiences that are irreversible. Instead, we look for
ways to break the barriers of the past because we remain convinced that
between cultures and countries, conversation must come first, in order for
there to be any understanding at all.
To do our job, we rely on symbols and signals. We are both guided by rules,
although we try to find creative, new ways of expressing and protecting
universal truths. But finding the new, doesn’t mean negation of the old, as
you are showing us here.
This renovated building will embrace its history. The Villa Empain has seen
empires come and go. It has witnessed the making of modern Europe. With the
exquisite renovation that is planned for it, the diversity and quality of
its materials, its refined details and the coherence of the whole will be
underscored. But it is the programs and the exhibitions that will, like the
Villa itself, become a part of the patrimony of our shared cultures, of our
diversity and quality, while celebrating the coherence of our whole.
Congratulations. I look forward to seeing the building completed and the
program fully operational.
On September 14, at invitation of the Heinrich Boll Foundation of Brussels,
Minister Oskanian met with representatives of leading think tanks and policy
institutes in Brussels, to speak about Armenia’s foreign policy challenges,
regional issues, Armenia’s bilateral relations generally, and especially
with its neighbors and with the EU.
Those present asked about the specific situation between Armenia and its
four neighbors, the current situation of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict,
Armenia’s European integration processes,