NORMALIZING ARMENIAN-TURKISH RELATIONS PROCESS WILL CONTINUE, SAYS TURKOLOGIST
Tert
Sept 21 2009
Armenia
"Serzh Sargsyan’s visit to Turkey must not be conditional on the
process of the Protocols. Simply, Sargsyan invited Turkey’s president,
who came, and Sargsyan’s visit will be simply a response visit;
particularly, if the visit on the occasion of the football match is
not bound to any issue. I think, however, that the president will
go, and the process of normalization will continue," Turkologist
Hakob Chakrian told Tert.am, in response to the question on upcoming
developments in the process of establishing Armenian-Turkish relations.
In the issue of establishing Armenian-Turkish relations, Chakrian views
the possible developments in this way: "In this matter, the Turkish
side also doesn’t have the possiblility of maneuvering much. Finally,
international powers initiated this process and is it their position
which will be decisive."
The Turkologist doesn’t exclude the interruption of the process
either. "Turkey’s authorities express changing views: on one hand, they
are for the normalization [of Armenian-Turkish relations]; on the other
hand, they connect the issue with the settlement of Nagorno-Karbakh,
which is unacceptable in the international arena. Even if the process
is interrupted let it be Turkey’s fault that it’s interrupted, so
that Armenia doesn’t become a target of international pressures. The
process failing is not excluded, since Erdogan’s leadership has a
serious opposition," Chakrian commented.
Continuing, the expert expressed his surprise at Armenia’s opposition,
which, according to him, doesn’t believe their independent country’s
president’s statements and prefers to believe its own assumptions,
according to which there are preconditions in the Armenian Turkish
Protocols.
"There is not a single precondition in the documents. There are tenets,
on which diverse comments can be made. Generally speaking, those from
the opposition who in previous years were expressing another opinion on
Armenian-Turkish relations are now saying the diametrically opposite,
which is concerning because [it shows that] governing bodies are unable
to express their own point of view and they are condemned to having
incessant opinions and changing points of view," stated Chakrian.