WAITING FOR CLEAR ANSWERS
Armen Tsatouryan
Hayots Ashkharh Daily
Nov 14 2007
Armenia
Along with the electoral campaign, there emerges the imperative of
clarifying the attitudes of all the RA Presidential candidates with
regard to the policy of supporting the international recognition of
the Armenian Genocide, an issue included in the agenda of Armenia’s
foreign policy since 1998.
Let’s remind you that during the years when L. Ter-Petrosyan was
in power, Armenia had no such issue included in its foreign policy
agenda. Moreover, due to the efforts of Zhirayr Liparityan, Chief
Advisor of the President, Armenia was doing its best for starting a
unilateral flirtation with Turkey, thus overlooking the key issue of
the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide. We all know
how all this ended.
It is also well-known that by raising this issue actively on the
international arena since 1998, the present-day authorities have had
significant achievements in terms of the international recognition
of the Armenian Genocide,.
Now that our country is becoming faced with the imperative of having
a new President, both Armenia and the Diaspora are following the
candidates’ speeches and political statements with great interest,
trying to clarify each candidates’ attitude towards the international
recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
However, L. Ter-Petrosyan’s October 26 speech-lecture delivered on
the Theatrical Square did not contain a single sentence regarding
this key issue.
Nominated as an RA Presidential candidate on November 11, during
the 11th RPA Congress, Prime Minister Serge Sargsyan touched upon the
issue of regulating the Armenian-Turkish relations and emphasized that,
"the experience and success gained during the past years allow us to
insist that Armenia will not succumb to the Turkish and Azerbaijani
blackmail and will continue to stick to its approach of establishing
interstate relations without any preconditions…"
It is obvious that by saying "success" the Prime Minister also means
the extension of the process of the international recognition of the
Armenian Genocide, as this has allowed our country to counterbalance
to Turkey’s policy of imposing unilateral conditions and bring our
neighbors striving for EU membership face to face with the necessity
of recognizing their past.
Thus, it is obvious that although the two presidential candidates have
not detailed their attitudes, Serge Sargsyan’s most recent speech gives
grounds to conclude that making a positive assessment on the recent
years’ achievements in the field of recognizing the Armenian Genocide,
he will purse the policy adopted by President Kocharyan since 1998.
In such conditions, it also becomes necessary to find out
L. Ter-Petrosyan’s current political attitudes. Is it possible that
during the past decade, a period which became outstanding in terms of
the achievements in the process of the international recognition of
the Armenian Genocide, the ex-President has changed his ideas about the
"civilized Turkey"? Or, he still continues to believe in the solution
proposed by Zhirayr Liparityan that it is possible to push Turkey to
dialogue through unilateral concessions.
We believe that during the decade following 1998, Turkey, a country
striving for EU membership, unmasked itself not only in front of
Armenia, but also – the international community. And it became
clear not only due to the efforts of the Armenian diplomats and the
Diaspora but also due to the large number of reports and documents
of the European structures, regarding Turkey’s non-compliance.
And after all this, when the Turkish press has already has managed to
welcome L. Ter-Petrosyan’s return through the enthusiastic publications
and analyses printed in "Huriet" and "Miliet", the country’s most
influential newspapers, the right to voice, as they say, belongs to
L. Ter-Petrosyan himself. And our public expects them to give answers
to at least three questions: First: does the ex-President admit
that the extremely unrealistic assessments on Turkey’s tyrannical
regime, which he and his team made at the dawn of independence,
were thoroughly wrong?
Second: does he agree to the viewpoint that the present-day
authorities’ significant achievements in the sphere of the
recognition of the Armenian Genocide have created quite a new and
favorable attitude towards the Armenian people and contributed to
the strengthening of Armenia’s security.
Third: Considering that the Turkish diplomats have become more than
enthusiastic after his return to politics, is the ex-President ready
to draw relevant conclusions which may serve for him as grounds
for launching a counter-attack on them, by confessing that the
present-day authorities have adopted the right policy for achieving
the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide, We believe
that the tactics of overlooking or passing over these issues in
silence is not beneficial first of all to L. Ter-Petrosyan himself.