PRECONDITIONS TO BE SET BY ARMENIA
Nayira Khachatryan

Hayots Ashkhar Daily
11 Sep 2008
Armenia

Being yesterday’s guest-speaker of "Urbat" (Friday) club, ASHOT
MELKONYAN, Head of the History Institute of the National Academy
of Sciences, expressed his viewpoints on the prospects of the
Armenian-Turkish relations.

A. Melkonyan finds that Mr. Gul’s visit was an attempt by the Turkish
diplomacy to mitigate the atmosphere of distrust in Turkey. "In all
the international formats, Armenia has always been against Turkey’s
participation in any process, particularly the settlement of the NKR
conflict, because Turkey has always assumed a prejudiced, partial and
an accentuated pro-Azerbaijani stance. But this time, the Turkish
diplomacy was successful enough to gain some elements of trust in
certain political circles of Armenia."

Turkey’s proposal on ensuring stability and establishing a platform of
cooperation and peace in the Caucasus is not something new, according
to the historian. "The Caucasian idea is not a new idea. It has
existed since 1918-1920. After signing the Batumi Treaty in 1918,
the Turkish diplomacy viewed the proclamation of the three newly
established states as a great favor on its own part; particularly,
as far as Armenia was concerned.

I would like to refer to the words of Nuri Pasha who said, ‘In 1918,
we created an Armenia which was in a sack, and the mouth of that sack
is in our hands. At any moment, we may tie the mouth of the sack so
that Armenia will suffocate.’ "

The speaker believes that Turkey, which has made a proposal on
establishing a platform of stability, does not have a vivid picture
of its further plans.

"The platform, as a document, has not yet been developed, in my
opinion.

When Russia took practical steps towards restoring its weight on
the regional and why not – the global level, Turkey became strictly
concerned by that. Besides, Russia is exerting various forms of
pressure upon Turkey to prevent it from opening a new railroad with
Armenia, because as a result of the realization of such plans, the
Kars – Akhalkalaki railroad will no longer be as important, and even
the possibility of constructing it will vanish.

In such circumstances, Turkey’s haste in terms of proposing a platform
of stability is quite natural."

The Turkish proposal was not rejected by the Armenian authorities, and
that was a right step, as characterized by A. Melkonyan. "The Turkish
side advanced the proposal on establishing a platform, and it didn’t
open the brackets. Naturally, if the Armenian party had rejected the
approach, it would have found itself in a very inconvenient situation,
so to say.

That’s why I believe that welcoming the proposal was the right thing
to do. As t o what it is, and what the platform implies, we do not
know that.

I understand the idea in the following way: strengthening the Turkish
influence in the region and acquiring a certain degree of trust
in Armenia.

Our diplomacy was persistent enough to achieve Mr. Gul’s arrival in
Yerevan, and the fact was viewed as a diplomatic success. But the
further steps are going to be more difficult. When you go into detail,
there emerge a lot of problems."