ARF-ER Issues Statement After Meeting with Sarkisian in New York

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By Asbarez Staff on Oct 4th, 2009

The ARF Central Committee Eastern Region released the following
statement after Armenian President Serge Sarkisian met with Armenian
American organizations in New York City on Oct. 3.

* * *

Today, representatives of the ARF Central Committee Eastern Region
were present at a meeting between Armenia President Serge Sarkisian
and various eastern United States Armenian American organizations at
the Palace Hotel in New York City.
We attended to tell President Sarkisian why the ARF opposes the
Armenia-Turkey protocols in their current state. We urged President
Sarkisian to stop the dangerous protocols signing and ratification
process and recommit himself and his government to establishing
diplomatic relations with Turkey that don’t endanger the inalienable
rights of the entire Armenian Nation.

We pointed to those parts of the protocols that are especially adverse
to the Armenian Nation’s interests, including the sections that:

1. Promise 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. Promise that Armenia will permit the Armenian Genocide to be
assessed `impartially’ and `scientifically’ using historic documents,
as if the fact of the genocide has not been already researched in that
manner exhaustively. Such a formulation opens the path toward
rendering the genocide debatable.

3. Promise that Armenia will defend the integrity of its neighboring
nations’ territorial claims, thereby jeopardizing the
self-determination of the people of Nagorno-Karabagh.

We sounded these alarms and emphasized our serious concerns to
President Sarkisian face-to-face on behalf of our members and
supporters in the eastern United States. However, during the course of
the meeting, it became clear to us that our appeals were falling on
deaf ears.

The Armenian government’s defense of the protocols baffles us when
their content clearly evinces Armenia’s abdication to Turkey and her
long-standing and openly held anti-Armenia and anti-Nagorno-Karabagh
agenda.

President Sarkisian apparently has not heeded our and others’ warnings
about Turkey’s open anti-Armenian political ambitions, choosing
instead to repeat unconvincing claims that the protocols contain no
preconditions and represent a great step forward for Armenia-Turkey
diplomatic relations.

We attended the meeting, conveyed our message, and received President
Sarkisian’s unbending response. At this point, we can only hope that
President Sarkisian seriously entertains our concerns and those he has
already heard – and will continue to hear – from the Armenian Diaspora
and back home in Armenia. President Sarkisian’s failure to take heed
and recess the protocol signing and ratification process will lead the
Armenian Nation into a dangerous political thicket from which she and
her people will not emerge unscathed.

ARF Central Committee
Eastern Region
Oct. 3, 2009

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress