TURKEY TAKES ADVANTAGE OF THE DIALOGUE
Vardan Grigoryan
Hayots Ashkhar Daily
17 Oct 2008
Armenia
With the purpose of including the bill condemning the Armenian Genocide
into the agenda of the French Senate, a number of French-Armenian youth
organizations organized a function, which became the "litmus test"
clearly revealing the hidden "springs" of the policy that continues
to be pursued by our neighboring country even after A. Gul’s visit
to Yerevan.
Just a day after the launch of the function, Speaker of the Turkish
Parliament Köksal Toptan made the following statement in a meeting
with Joséline de Rohan, Head of the Foreign Relations, Defense and
Armed Forces Committee of the French Parliament, "We ask our French
colleagues not to intervene in the Armenian-Turkish relations because
any intervention will bring harm to those relations."
It turns out that the French Senate’s discussion over the bill
condemning the Armenian Genocide at the demand of the Armenian young
people is viewed by Turkey as an intervention in the Armenian-Turkish
relations, in which no essential progress has been observed so far.
It should be noted that instead of showing any counteraction to this
strange statement, Joséline de Rohan assured her Turkish colleague
that France had no intention to intervene in the dialogue between
Yerevan and Ankara and even made hints that it was necessary for the
parties to look to the future.
This leads to the assumption that Joséline de Rohan also considers
the passage of a new Armenian Genocide bill as an attempt of returning
to the past instead of looking to the future.
This completely justifies the misgivings that Turkey may try to take
advantage of the dialogue with Armenia with the purpose of preventing
the further process of the international recognition of the Armenian
Genocide.
There is, certainly, no need to accuse the Turkish diplomacy of
cynical hypocrisy and immorality because such is the essence of
that country. The thing is that the obstacle currently faced by the
French-Armenian youth organizations can very soon be used in other
countries as well, so the Armenian side has to think about elaborating
relevant methods and technologies for finding a way out.
The thing is that a legal initiative on the recognition of the Armenian
Genocide has been proposed by the Swedish parliamentary opposition
as well, and the Turkish diplomats may be expected to pay a visit to
that country in the near future and demand non-interference in their
dialogue with Armenia.
Appeals for recognizing the Armenian Genocide are also voiced in
Ukraine, so it’s quite possible that the Turkish parliamentarians or
diplomats may organize a voyage to that country too.
It turns out that Turkey’s tactics of "shutting the enemy’s mouth with
hugs" may soon be applied as a universal tool laying obstacles to
the process of the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
Whereas, Turkey uses almost the same tactics with regard to the
Karabakh issue as well. Following the presidential elections in
Azerbaijan, Ankara intends to initiate a new trilateral meeting
with the participation of the Armenian, Turkish and Azeri Foreign
Ministers within the frameworks of the agenda discussions over the
Karabakh issue.
It’s noteworthy that Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan and
C. Rice have recently conducted a discussion in this connection,
and thereafter the US State Secretary announced that the attempts of
proceeding with the Karabakh peace process beyond the frameworks of
the Minsk Group "are not worthy of any attention". In the estimation of
the Azerbaijani media, this means that "Sargsyan has persuaded Rice not
to involve Turkey as a mediator in the Karabakh settlement process".
Actually, by providing unilateral assistance to Azerbaijan,
i.e. assuring the country that it is not going to open the
Armenian-Turkish border before the withdrawal of the Armenian troops
from the liberated territories, and pursuing the contrary policy with
regard to the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, i.e. giving the
country admonitions of not interfering in the "Turkish honeymoon",
Turkey is actually conducting a dual policy.
With the help of the20former, it continues to use pressure against
Armenia, and with the help of the latter it is trying to use against
the countries that may, in the near future, discuss bills recognizing
the Armenian Genocide.
All this comes to prove that the Turkish diplomacy has prepared for us
an entire network of traps and at the same time, it is using different
tools of pressure.
We believe our Foreign Ministry has to clearly announce that Turkey’s
attempts of laying obstacles to the process of the recognition of the
Armenian Genocide do not, as a matter of fact, bear any relationship
to the first steps undertaken in the sphere of the Armenian-Turkish
relations.
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