SERZH SARGSYAN: MY SHORT YET TOO EVENTFUL TRIP ABOUT DIASPORA’S COMMUNITIES GAVE ME VERY IMPORTANT IMPULSES

Noyan Tapan
Oct 8, 2009

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 8, NOYAN TAPAN. RA President, National Security
Council Chairman Serzh Sargsyan convened a National Security Council
enlarged meeting on October 8. According to a report by the RA
President’s Press Office, besides members of the National Security
Council, Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II, Bargavach Hayastan
(Prosperous Armenia) party Chairman Gagik Tsarukian, Public Council
Chairman Vazgen Manukian, and Minister of Diaspora Hranush Hakobian
also participated in the meeting.

At the National Security Council meeting the participants discussed
the current stage of normalization of Armenia-Turkey relations and
country’s future tasks in this direction, summed up the public
discussions over the normalization process of Armenian-Turkish
relations, as well as RA President’s pan-Armenian trip.

Serzh Sargsyan opening the National Security Council meeting said:

"Dear colleagues,

We have a single issue on today’s agenda of the National Security
Council meeting, the current condition of our initiative to
normalize the Armenia-Turkey relations and our future tasks in this
connection. Now it is time to sum up the public discussions lasting
for nearly six weeks. My pan-Armenian trip has also finished, during
which I had a possibility to get acquainted with opinions of our
sisters and brothers in the Diaspora, their concerns and proposals.

Today I will tell you my impressions and conclusions from
that trip. Then we will touch upon the problems of signing the
Armenia-Turkey initiated protocols and the next stages of the process.

During a week I visited the most important centers of Armenian Diaspora
– Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Beirut, and Rostov-on-Don. Regional
meetings were held in each place, and representatives of Armenian
national structures functioning in each community and of separate
communities were present at the meetings. From the very start
we realized that we could not ensure a level of representation
to please everybody. However, I think we managed to ensure a
circle of invitees that permitted to provide a wide spectrum of
opinions and approaches. As the goal of my visit was not to give a
numerical analysis to Diaspora’s collective opinion, we did not attach
importance to ensuring equal representation of each view’s supporters
in the hall. For us, it was more important to listen to all possible
approaches and to receive the whole possible consultation in this
issue. I think we managed to.

A question was often voiced during my trip: aren’t these consultations
late in consideration of the fact that the protocols have been
already initiated?

I think it is only the opinion of people who sincerely believe that
normalization of Armenia-Turkey relations is limited to initiation of
protocols. Certainly, it is not so. For me, the discussions in the
Diaspora were too important in the respect of planning our strategy
and tactics in each link of the chain from initiation to signing,
from signing to ratification, and from ratification to fulfillment.

A concern was often voiced during my meetings that Armenia does not
have sufficient resources – human, financial-economic, political
to organize those relations as an equal side. I think it is a wrong
approach. Yes, we need to mobilize our resources, to use Diaspora’s
potential completely.

However, in my opinion, that argument cannot be enough for shutting
ourselves up inside our country.

There were concerns that establishment of relations and opening of
the border can result in an economic and demographic expansion. I
think it is the same as to suppose that beheading is the best method
of getting rid of a headache.

I had an occasion to reaffirm our approach that we do not consider
that the protocols can be interpreted as documents binding Armenia’s
negotiations positions in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. Moreover,
I reaffirmed our approach to possible settlement conditions – without
a limitation, through expression of free will, determination of its
legal status by the Nagorno Karabakh people. I consider it important
that U.S. President Barack Obama once more reaffirmed it when I had
a telephone talk with him during my stay in Los Angeles. The concerns
of our compatriots, as well as statements on this issue periodically
voiced by the Turkish leadership are understandable.

Certainly, in our small region all processes can influence each other.

Another thing is important here: we are not ready and will never make
one-sided concessions in the issue of Nagorno Karabakh, irrespective
of the thing what we can be suggested for it.

The next main concern is the alleged possible retreat in the issue of
international recognition and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide. I
think it is obvious that any Armenian cannot but voice the reasons
of our being a people spread throughout the world and deprived of its
territory. We have a duty in the issue of recognition and condemnation
of the Genocide and will do that duty to the end. I feel sorry that
giving way to their emotions some of our sisters and brothers lost
the ideological basis of their steps. If the fair demand of all of
us is voicing the importance of accepting the fact of the Genocide
in the Armenia-Turkey relations, then it was the very purpose of
starting my pan-Armenian trip, as a symbol, with paying the tribute
of our respect to the Genocide victims at the monument to Komitas in
Paris. I expected that not with a provocation of 100 people but with
an action of protest of many thousands of people we should have shown
our consolidation and position in this issue.

And lastly, there was a concern in the issue of recognition of
the current borders. My answer was unchanged: making territorial
demands is not the best start for normalizing relations. There are
facts of political culture of the 21st century we are obliged to
take into consideration. I also had an opportunity to emphasize and
repeatedly heard the fair approach of our sisters and brothers in the
Diaspora that the Armenian-Turkish relations are much wider than the
Armenia-Turkey relations.

Dear colleagues,

My short yet too eventful trip about Diaspora’s communities gave me
very important impulses. I had an occasion to once more appreciate
the potential of our collective identity. I had an opportunity to
once more feel how different we are depending on our birthplace,
community where we live, organization where we work and meanwhile how
much alike we are thanks to our collective Armenian identity. I also
heard many words of support and encouragement in the Diaspora. I do
not want to touch upon them separately because it is us as a state
and state officials who bear full responsibility for the signing and
we are not going to lay the burden of responsibility on someone. My
goal was not returning from the pan-Armenian trip to say that the
Diaspora is for signing the Armenia-Turkey current protocols."

Then the National Security Council discussed the current stage of
normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations. The report read that
all participants of the National Security Council enlarged meeting
expressed their support for the initiated documents.