JIRAYR KOCHARIAN: HISTORY SHOWS THAT ONE CANNOT TRUST THE TURKS
/PanARMENIAN.Net/
08.02.2010 16:50 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Recently professor in Armenian Studies at Freie
Universitaet Berlin Jirayr Kocharian presented a report on the
Armenian-Turkish Protocols and their impact on the Karabakh conflict
for the Armenian cultural and spiritual community of Berlin and
Hamburg.
"I think, the signing of the protocols is a consequence of other
countries’ pressure. History has proven that one cannot trust the
Turks. Apparently, the Turkish side will set up a thousands of claims
before agreeing to open the border. And first of all, the solution of
the Karabakh conflict will be the requirement, which will be followed
by a number of other unacceptable demands. After all, if two countries
really want to normalize relations, they must adhere to the items of
the Protocol ," Jirayr Kocharian told a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter.
According to him, the Armenian community in Germany are against the
two main provisions of protocol: establishment of the historical
subcommittee and the recognition of de facto existing borders.
"After all, it casts doubt on everything the Armenian people
experienced. Besides, this is not we who closed the border, but Turkey,
and it is responsible for it, " Jirayr Kocharian concluded.
First Armenians who settled in Germany in new times were students who
came to Kaiser’s Germany to study and they founded the first Union of
Armenian students in Germany in Leipzig in 1885. The actual migration
of Armenians to Germany in XX century was occurred after the Armenian
Genocide in Turkey and the First World War. "German-Armenian Society"
non-profit association was founded in 1914 in Berlin and in 1923 the
Armenian colony in Berlin was the first formally registered Armenian
community. The biggest wave of migration of Armenians to Germany
in the postwar was in 1970’s and was caused by the war in Lebanon,
and the fundamentalist revolution in Iran in the 1980’s: about 20
thousand Armenians moved to Germany.
Latest big migration flow of Armenians to Germany was after the
collapse of the Soviet Union and particularly after the massacres of
Armenians in Baku and Sumgait (Azerbaijan). According to the Central
Board of Armenians in Germany, about 10 thousand Armenians fled to
Germany from Azerbaijan. According to the same source, between 40
and 42 thousand Armenians live in Germany, about half of them were
born in Germany.
The Protocols aimed at normalization of bilateral ties and opening of
the border between Armenia and Turkey were signed in Zurich by Armenian
Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian and his Turkish counterpart Ahmet
Davutoglu on October 10, 2009, after a series of diplomatic talks
held through Swiss mediation.
On January 12, 2010, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of
Armenia found the protocols conformable to the country’s Organic Law.
The conflict between Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan broke out in
1988 as result of the ethnic cleansing the latter launched in the
final years of the Soviet Union. The Karabakh War was fought from
1991 to 1994. Since the ceasefire in 1994, sealed by Armenia, Nagorno
Karabakh and Azerbaijan, most of Nagorno Karabakh and several regions
of Azerbaijan around it (the security zone) remain under the control
of NKR defense army. Armenia and Azerbaijan are holding peace talks
mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group up till now.