SARGSJAN’S SWISS GAME
Yuri Simonjan
WPS Agency
What the Papers Say
September 16, 2009 Wednesday
Russia
RECONCILIATION WITH TURKEY FOMENTED PROTESTS IN ARMENIA; The
opposition in both Armenia and Turkey protests against the process
of normalization.
President of Armenia Serj Sargsjan will meet with representatives
of republican political forces tomorrow and discuss normalization of
the Armenian-Turkish relations. An analogous meeting and discussion
are also expected in Ankara in the near future.
Armenian political forces regard the meeting with Sargsjan as
a formality. An alliance of nearly parties of the opposition
(the Armenian National Congress headed by the first President of
Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosjan) and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation
Dashnaktsutyun (it quit the ruling coalition and joined the opposition)
turned down invitations to a dialogue.
Turkish political circles and general public in the meantime thoroughly
dislike it that official Ankara finally agreed to discuss problem of
the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic beyond the framework of the so called
Swiss Protocols. Radicals in Turkey are particularly critical of the
clause in the agreement that stipulates a joint panel to study genocide
of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in the 19th and 20th centuries.
"Handling the problems of the South Caucasus in general, Moscow
and Washington divided the roles. The United States shouldered
responsibility for the Armenian-Turkish relations. Russia in its
turn is responsible for the Karabakh conflict settlement. Validity of
this assumption is confirmed by the Meindorf Declaration and by the
series of the meetings between presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan
in Moscow," political scientist Armen Gevorkjan said. Gevorkjan
added that this arrangement resulted in two parallel processes – the
Armenian-Turkish and Karabakh. "Progress made in the Armenian-Turkish
relations shows that Washington has succeeded in its mission. Odds
are that activization of Moscow’s efforts in the matter of Karabakh
will follow. That’s what Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoglu
called his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov about on August 1,"
Gevorkjan explained.
The Armenian opposition disagreed with this assessment. It called
the joint panel clause of the agreement with Turkey treason against
national interests of Armenia (which made its reaction a mirror image
of the reaction displayed by the Turkish opposition). Ter-Petrosjan’s
Press Secretary Arman Musinjan told Nezavisimaya Gazeta that the
Armenian National Congress intended to resume protests and rallies
come Friday. "Ratification of the Swiss Protocols as they are is
unacceptable," Musinjan said. "The first president of Armenia has
always promoted normalization of relations with Turkey – without
preliminary conditions. But not at all costs, of course. Establishment
of the joint commission to study facts of genocide is but acceptance
on the part of the ruling regime of the doubts concerning existence
of the genocide in the first place."
Musinjan proclaimed the Armenian National Congress convinced that
"… the authorities of Armenia make unwarranted concessions and
traitorous compromises on a number of important issues, including
the Karabakh issue."
Dashnaktsutyun in the meantime made an emphasis on unacceptability of
yet another clause of the Swiss Protocols, the one dealing with the
opening of the Armenian-Turkish border. As far as opposition leaders
are concerned, this clause legalizes the existing Armenian-Turkish
borders and, with them, annexation of nearly two thirds of the
Armenian lands in the light of the Treaty of Kars (1921) signed by
the Bolsheviks and Kemal’s Turkey.
Sargsjan dismisses all accusations as contrived. "It is easier to do
nothing at all than initiate a solution to some problem or other and
succeed," the president said at the meeting with young activists of
the Republican Party.
Ashot Manucharjan, a political scientist living in Berlin, believes
that the secrecy surrounding the Nagorno-Karabakh talks and the talks
over the Armenian-Turkish normalization is absolutely warranted because
any leak of information on them is immediately used by the political
forces determined to complicate these processes. "On the other hand,
secrecy foments speculations and escalates tension in Turkey, Armenia,
and Azerbaijan as well. Making guesses on the future developments is
difficult and essentially counterproductive," he said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
