Aztag Daily, Lebanon
Jan 19 2010

Alignment of Approaches And Future Steps

by Shahan Kandaharian, Editor-in-Chief

The Ambassadors of Germany and France to Armenia joined the
statements made by the Russian Prime Minister and Foreign Minister.
According to them the Garapagh peace process isn’t related to
Armenian-Turkish relations which must enter into a phase of immediate
accomplishment.

The two high ranking diplomats are expressing the position
of their respective countries. Therefore, we can underline that the
European position aligns itself with the similar positions of the
United States and Russia, considering that Germany and France are the
leading countries of Europe. There is of course a slight difference
between the statements issued by the United States and the rest. The
official spokespersons of the US State Department had announced on
several occasions that Armenia-Turkey relations must proceed without
any preconditions. There was no direct mention of not involving
Gharapagh as was seen in the statements of both Russian and European
officials.

However, in essence all the statements are similar. §Without
any preconditions¦ means keeping Gharapagh out of the matter. And vice
versa. Therefore, in the present state of affairs the unending demand
of the Armenian side and the approach of the international community
fall in the same track. Turkey is isolated in its conditional
politics. It can be said that the proposal of the Armenian side has
been internationalized. We must underline that in the present stage
the Armenian tactic in the discussion of this matter has gained ground
at the sight of international norms.

We shouldn’t get excited of course. We are dealing with
geopolitical forces that have given the international community
samples of dipomatic §artworks¦ related to sudden shifts in stances.
Let us not forget either that in spite of the announcements and their
rejection of including the Gharapagh issue in the development of
Armenian-Turkish relations, Armenian-Azerbeidjani negotiations are
running parallelly and often at the same rate even.

For example in the dynamic traffic of meetings between
Erdogan and Putin, Lavrov and Nalbandian and afterwards Lavrov and
Sarksian as well as Sarksian and Medvedev it was suddenly announced
that a Sarksian-Aliyev meeting is to be held this week. Media outlets
are already reporting that during their meeting in Moscow, the
presidents of Armenia and Russia have discussed the issue of the
meeting between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbeidjan.

If the two processes are not intertwined then they are
parallel and running at the same rate. Analysts are not predicting a
breakthrough in the Gharapagh peace process. It seems that a
breakthrough is not at the corner in the Armenian-Turkish relations
either given the fact that voices echoing from Ankara do not find it
necessary to include the discussion of the Protocols in the Turkish
Parliament. Specially after the Russian statement.

There are indications that all this talk about preconditions
or no preconditions, including the Gharapagh issue or not will still
continue. Meanwhile considering the fact that we are facing the
evidence of the similarity of the Armenian and international community
stances, Armenia must continue to press for neutralizing the Turkish
preconditions. Steps which were to a certain degree materialized with
the Constitutional Court’s decisions and which must achieve legality
in front of the internaltional community with the National Assembly,
with Parliamentarian reservations.

[translated from Armenian]