ARF STATEMENT ON UPCOMING NY MEETING WITH PRESIDENT SARKISIAN
30/arf-statement-on-upcoming-ny-meeting-with-presi dent-sarkisian/
September 30, 2009
The ARF Central Committee Eastern Region released the following
declaration this week on the occasion of the Oct. 3 meeting in New
York City between Armenia President Serge Sarkisian and eastern United
States Armenian organizations to discuss the Armenia-Turkey protocols.
Armenia’s President Serge Sarkisian has called a meeting with various
Armenian organizations on Oct. 3, 2009 in New York City to discuss
the Armenia-Turkey protocols. Representatives from the ARF Central
Committee Eastern Region and its affiliated organizations have been
invited to the meeting and plan to attend.
But, let us be clear: We will attend this meeting because we do not
want to forgo an opportunity to voice our strong and uncompromising
opposition to these dangerous protocols. We will do so directly and
forthrightly, letting the president know that the protocols he defends
actually betray the national rights of the entire Armenian Nation:
Armenia, the Armenian Diaspora, and Nagorno-Karabagh.
President Sarkisian has claimed that he is conducting his speaking
tour of the diaspora’s largest communities to hear their views on
the protocols. However, normally stakeholders are engaged to provide
input into critical policy decisions before policy formulation and
public announcement, not after their release. Such illogical timing is
compounded by additional claims that the government will not entertain
any attempts to amend these protocols.
Viewed in this light, the president’s upcoming visit is not only late,
but lacking in political and moral sincerity, particularly when Armenia
and Turkey have announced that the timetable for protocol signing
and ratification has been accelerated to occur sometime during the
next two weeks.
The Eastern Region of the United States is home to the Armenian
Diaspora’s oldest organized Armenian communities, built by 1915
Armenian Genocide survivors. Those survivors were devoted to
sustaining the Armenian Nation and fortifying her citizens with pride
and dignity so that one day Ottoman Turkey’s planned murder of 1.5
million Armenian victims would be avenged with the perpetrators’
apology and fair reparations.
When Armenia was under Soviet rule and unable to defend Armenian
rights, it was the diaspora-for decades-that pursued Hai Tahd and
placed it firmly on the world’s agenda. These years of painstaking work
are why Turkey today cannot appear in any international forum without
being confronted with demands for justice. It is incomprehensible that
president Sarkisian would sign away the rights of the survivors of the
first genocide of the 20th century without first gaining the support
of their descendants, the vast majority of whom live in the diaspora.
Unfortunately, a few diasporan organizations have equivocated, even
embraced the Armenia-Turkey protocols, sometimes dismissing the ARF’s
opposition as misguided. We consider it likely that-for whatever
reason-this minority will continue to maintain that unjustified
position.
The ARF has a record of seeking consensus and compromise on important
national issues, when it has been politically necessary for the
greater good of the Armenian Nation. However, some issues cannot be
compromised, especially when they pertain to our fundamental rights
as a nation. With this in mind, the ARF opposes, without hesitation,
the following provisions of the protocols:
1. The agreement that Armenia will formally recognize Turkey’s
current border, thus validating the dispossession of Western Armenia
and waiving the right of the Armenian Nation to negotiate fully over
Armenian Genocide reparations.
2. The agreement that the Armenian Genocide will be assessed
"impartially" and "scientifically" using historic documents, as if
the fact of the genocide has not been researched in that manner
exhaustively already. Such a formulation opens the path toward
rendering the genocide debatable.
3. The agreement that Armenia will defend the integrity of its
neighboring nations’ territorial claims, thereby jeopardizing the
self-determination of the people of Nagorno-Karabagh.
We cannot fathom the protocols’ support by any Armenian who has
marched in an April 24 demonstration; supported successful passage of
a federal or state Armenian Genocide resolution; wept with a genocide
survivor recalling the horror of seeing her village decimated and
emptied; donated funds to a nursery school in Nagorno-Karabagh; or
paid tribute to a young Armenian who sacrificed his very life for
our Armenian Cause.
Armenia’s ratification and signing of the protocols will jeopardize
the past work of generations of Armenians to bring the fullest measure
of justice for the Armenian Nation. Likewise, it will erode the future
efforts of generations who would continue these moral and politically
just efforts. Instead, the protocols will satisfy the articulated
aims of today’s Turkish government to silence the enduring and still
unanswered "Armenian Question."
On Sat., Oct. 3, the ARF Eastern Region Central Committee will
communicate this message to President Sarkisian. We are confident
that our community members will support that message and stand with
us in the uncertain days ahead.
ARF Central Committee Eastern Region, USA Sept. 29, 2009
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
