Hurriyet, Turkey
March 5 2010
Looking at the Genocide Bill voting from Yerevan
Friday, March 5, 2010
GÄ°LA BENMAYOR
As the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee voted
on the so-called Armenian `Genocide Bill,’ we were together with a few
Armenian politicians in the Armenian capital Yerevan.
How does Armenia take this `fragile process’ which has started with
signing protocols in Zurich and which is to affect both the
U.S.-Turkey and Turkey-Armenia relations?
Headquartered in Istanbul, TESEV organized a panel with the Caucasus
Institute in Yerevan. So I was in Armenia. I asked the above question
to our Armenian interlocutors.
Who were they?
They were Eduard Shermazanov, the ruling Republican Party spokesman;
Aram Sarafian, the coalition partner Prosperous Armenia Developed
Party chairman; Kiro Manayan, nationalist Dashnaktsutyun Party member;
Arsen Avagian, Armenian Foreign Ministry responsible for the Turkey
Desk, and Stepan Safarian, member of the opposition Heritage Party.
The Dashnaktsutyun Party departed from the coalition last April after
rejecting the Road Map between Armenia and Turkey.
Men in street clueless
After an array of conversations, our last meeting was with Sarafian.
As I asked about the voting in the U.S. House of Representatives, he
said:
`I don’t think that men in street care about this voting.’
This is the simplest truth about the voting.
As we wait for the result anxiously in Turkey, people in Yerevan don’t
care much about the Genocide Bill’s voting in U.S.
`I, as a political analyst, closely follow the voting of course. But
as I said Armenian people got used to such votes. Most probably, they
see this as manipulation or interest of some groups,’ Sarafian said.
When I asked the same question to Shermazanov, he said, `This is an
internal issue for the U.S. It’s been passed in 42 states anyway.
`I, as an Armenian, will be in content if the Genocide Bill is passed.
But I don’t want to tie Turkey-Armenia relations down to the Karabakh
issue and likewise don’t want to link them to the U.S. either.’
The dialogue continues
Conversations with the Armenian politicians took place just a few
hours before the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Relations
Committee approved the bill by 23 votes against 22.
The voting session continued as we ran around and held five or six
meetings in the same day.
Let’s set aside the voting and look into how Armenia reads Turkey’s
sort of freezing the `Zurich Protocols.’
This is the main theme of our meetings.
The names I gave above are in favor of developing bilateral relations
between Armenia and Turkey.
No matter which party or view they belong to, all emphasized that the
dialogue must go on.
According to Shermazanov, the Armenian Constitutional Court gave a
green light to the Zurich Protocols and set no pre-condition.
All right, but what will Armenia do next?
`We’re waiting for Turkey’
`Our parliament is ready to approve the protocols. So are our party
and our coalition partner. But we will wait for Turkey. If Turkey
approves them, we will approve them immediately; there is no problem
in our part,’ said Shermazanov.
In fact, Sarafian of the coalition partners told the same thing.
`Armenians and Azeris determine their policies by looking at each
other’s. And now we’ll do whatever you do,’ he said.
That is, Armenia follows a `wait and see’ approach.
But there is the other side of the coin.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry Turkey Desk leader Avagian said the
number of people who are against the protocols is increasing as the
approval process of the protocols is delayed.
According to Avagian, when the protocols were signed three out of five
people approved them, but now three out of five stand against.
And this of course weakens President Serzh Sarkisian’s hand in Armenia
where political balances may turn upside down at any minute.