"BERMUDA TRIANGLE"
HAKOB BADALYAN

Lragir.am
30/04/10

After the decision on suspension of the ratification process of the
Armenian and Turkish protocols, a tendency to concentrate the public
attention on the Karabakh issue is noticed. After the suspension,
panics about the dangerous situation in the NKR issue became more
often. Moreover, since the start of the NKR negotiation process, 20
years ago, a very particular reality has been notable during its whole
period: first, always, every government was accused of failing the
negotiations and besides, every government, has always insisted that
everything is all right and there is no need to believe opponents,
while the opponents say everything is very bad and the government
hides the truth from the public.

The society, the ordinary citizen following the whole process,
really appears in a difficult condition. It does not know whom to
believe if there is opposition to the governmental policy. Sometimes
very grounded, on the other hand, there is Karabakh and released
territories which are still "Armenian", and are not yielded. Who is
right? The powers of all times or the oppositions of all times which
during years replaced each other? Besides, the problem to understand
this chaos, the society faces another problem of finding out the
measurement with which to assess the policy over the NKR issue.

The point is that during the last twenty years, the axis calculating
the expedience, rightness, effectiveness and the correspondence of
the policy over the NKR issue to the national and public as well as
civil interest was not set.

Levon Ter-Petrosyan and his supporters say that during their
governance, the negotiation process was more favorable for Armenia
than during Robert Kocharyan’s and Serge Sargsyan’s tenures. Robert
Kocharyan and his supporters affirm that during their power, the
NKR negotiation process was more expedient for Armenia than during
Ter-Petrosyan’s and Sargsyan’s tenures. While, Serge Sargsyan and his
supporters insist that the Karabakh dispute is in a better situation
during their governance than it was during Ter-Petrosyan’s and
Kocharyan’s tenures.

How the poor Armenian citizen is going to cope with the situation?

Naturally, the version that all of them, Levon Ter-Petrosyan,
Robert Kocharyan and Serge Sargsyan are to leave altogether, starts
to be much spoken. But this approach seems a little too idealistic,
consequently, a bit unreal. It is comprehensible that such a thing
will never happen in the nearest future. Perhaps, it is even worthless
to happen because the answer to the question what is going to happen
after is unknown. Who is going to fill the field to help us find
stable and clear measurements to assess the NKR issue? I do think
there is lack of potential for such a force.

Merely, this potential is not enough. It has to still show its
vitality to show that the place of the Bermuda triangle of the NKR
issue "Ter-Petrosyan-Kocharyan-Sargsyan" will not remain empty but at
the same time, will not be filled with the same logic. Such a tendency
or a sign has not been noticed so far and "Bermudas" continue their
absorption of time and distance.

After all this, it would be a little naïve to accuse Bermuda triangle
that it devours ships. After all, let ships find a new way or not
deviate from their own.