THIS YEAR WILL BE STRAINED FOR TURKEY, ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN, EXPERT

news.az
Jan 13 2010
Azerbaijan

Arif Yunus I had no doubts that the Constitutional Court of Armenia
would support the protocols.

The Armenian parliament will do the same. There is no unambiguous
attitude to these protocols in the Armenian public, said political
scientist Arif Yunus commenting on the information about recognition of
the Armenian-Turkish protocols by the Constitutional Court of Armenia.

"There are radical political powers that are against protocols in
Armenia. But a greater part of the Armenian community understands that
Armenia would benefit from opening the borders. The economic situation
in Armenia is too bad and Armenians consider that if borders open,
the relations with Turkey and Azerbaijan would improve. Otherwise,
Armenia has no future.

But this does not mean that this is a very easy process that will
proceed rapidly. There will be tensions in the Armenian society and
within the diaspora because Armenians have lived under the influence
of the Dashnak ideology targeting Turkey for more than 100 years.

Therefore, it is difficult for them to reject this vision", the
expert said.

Yunus noted that there is another important issue-creation of the
Armenian-Turkish commission for investigation of the 1915 events.

"If the protocols contained only the issue of opening the borders, the
Armenians’ attitude would not be so negative. There is a question of
creation of a joint Armenian-Turkish commission that would investigate
the 1915 events. This means that there will be problems in the Armenian
society but I consider that Armenians will sign the protocols.

Now much depends on Turkey because the Turkish community does not have
a one-sided approach to this issue as they understand that there is
also an Azerbaijani factor. This means that this year will be strained
for Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan", he said.