WHEN ARMENIA IS NOT A COMPONENT IN THE ARMENIAN AND TURKISH RELATIONS
James Hakobyan
Lragir.am
11:47:39 – 20/03/2009
Barac Obama is not the first U.S. president candidate who promised
to recognize the Armenian genocide during his electoral campaign. In
other words, if he does not fulfil his promise, it can hardly be a
tragedy for the U.S. Except the Armenian community in the U.S. no on
else will note that Obama went back to his promise. But, considering
that Obama is a decent person, he will try to reason why he cannot
fulfil his promise on the Armenian genocide recognition now. And the
reason may be the Armenian and Turkish relations, which acquired a new
external shade after the "football diplomacy". Within the framework
of this diplomacy, conversations on the opening of the Armenian and
Turkish border began to circulate very often. It is not ruled out,
that Turkey will bind a red ribbon on the Armenian and Turkish border
and cut it on the eve of the April 24 at the opening ceremony of the
Armenian and Turkish relations. Evidently, Barac Obama is not the
person who will ruin the Armenian and Turkish relations. It is above
all doubts that he may prefer harming his reputation by going back
on his promise rather than ruining the Armenian and Turkish cordiality.
To this extent, it is probably senseless to except that on April
24 Obama will pronounce the word "genocide" and also that the
U.S. administration will not obstacle the Congress to adopt the
resolution on the Armenian genocide. What is that theatrical
spectacle needed for which is being played on these days through
the conversations on the opening of the border and through the
resolution introduced on the Congress Agenda? This show is performed in
connection with the visit of Barac Obama to Turkey in the beginning of
April. Turkey will try to manoeuvre with the help of the conversations
circulated about the opening of the Armenian and Turkish border,
and the U.S. will try to make some demands to Turkey with the help
of the resolution introduced before the Congress. In other words,
Turkey and the U.S. are balancing each other before Obama’s upcoming
visit to Turkey. But this does not mean that the visit is the end; in
other words, if nothing valuable is reached during the meeting the U.S.
will certainly recognize the genocide. Everything is continuous and
natural, and Turkey will go on the exploitation of the Armenian and
Turkish relations in its sake and the resolution will assume the role
of an instrument against Turkey for the U.S.
This entire is so simple that even a person who is not aware of
anything seems to be able to understand everything. Moreover, the
simpleness is so evident that one begins to doubt whether questions
of this scale maybe so simple. No doubt, there are other components
in the 0ATurkish and American relations, besides the Armenian and
Turkish relations and the question on the Armenian genocide. And these
components may wield influence on the significance of the Armenian
and Turkish relations and the genocide issue.
But, the question is that Armenia does not seem to have any role in
all of this. In other words, for instance, the Armenian and Turkish
relation is a component, but Armenia is not. At first sight it seems a
paradox, but everything is very logic. The point is that the process
called Armenian and Turkish ties, even if at some point was under
Armenia now Armenia does not have any other role besides meeting with
the Turkish officials. Armenia succeeded in one thing: Turkey does
not demand trilateral meetings with the participation of Armenia,
Turkey and Azerbaijan. It is clear that this format would be just
unacceptable for the Armenian government because the threat to the
Armenian security is too evident in this case. Although this format
creates additional work for the Turkish party, after each meeting
with the Armenian side it has to meet with the Azerbaijani side too,
nevertheless Turkey made that step, because in the opposite case it
may lose every chances to meet the Armenian authorities, while Turkey
needs them just for its links with the U.S., let alone its relations
with the EU and Russia.
In this state of things, it seems that the main worry of Armenian
should be the elevation if its position and, for example, the
Genocide recognition issue should be viewed in this context. Will the
recognition increase the Armenian role both in connection with its
relation with Turkey and in general with the regional matters? But,
perhaps, the problem is that Armenia, especially during the last
months, has embraced too many enterprises which in fact do not have
anything in common with the Armenian State interest and has done this
for hiding its failures in the home policy, and afterwards, Armenia
lost both its capacity to decide its own role and the capacity of
thinking about it.