APRIL 24 TO BE GOOD TEST TO WORLD’S LEADING COUNTRIES – ARMENIAN EXPERTS
14:47 * 02.02.15
“Interests or values” is the dilemma whose outcome highly depends on
the world leaders’ decision between visiting Yerevan on April 24 to
join the Genocide centennial commemoration events or go to Turkey
to celebrate the anniversary of the Gallipoli Campaign, says an
orientalist.
Speaking to Tert.am, Head of the Institute of Oriental Studies Ruben
Safrastyan said he doesn’t expect world countries’ common interests
with Turkey to hold their leaders back from making the moral choice.
“In my opinion, the absolute imperative has to work here,” he said,
considering acceptance of the Turkish president’s invitation immoral.
Safrastyan said he knows that Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s message, sent
to over 100 country leaders, has already received a positive reply
by Prince Charles of the United Kingdom, and the prime ministers
of Australia and New Zealand. But he said he still has positive
expectations. “I am hopeful morality will take the lead anyway,”
noted the expert.
He said he is more than confident that Turkey’s move to reschedule
the Gallipoli Campaign remembrance to April 24 is aimed at derailing
the Genocide condemnation process in every possible way.
“I see an element of panic,” Safrastyan noted. “They are doing
everything possible and impossible to have the reality on the Armenian
Genocide produce a counter effect.”
Safrastyan said he feels that the European Court of Human Rights’
recent ruling over the Perincek case also raised panic in the Turkish
society.
“The expression ‘Armenian Genocide’ is among the top search items
today, so I think the reaction by the world’s leading [news] agencies
and the press will be even more, and it will have its positive impact,”
he added.
Karen Bekaryan, who heads the Yerevan-based NGO European Integration,
also agreed that world leaders’ choice between visiting Yerevan or
Turkey would be a test as to their real preferences.
“It is a good topic: whether values or interests, and it’s no surprise
that many countries have now begun preferring the values to interests,”
he added.
Asked whether he expects the world to share views or focus attention
on the two topics, Bekaryan replied, “It has to turn [attention]
to countries which we were confident would be next to in Yerevan on
April 24. But I do not see any such country,” he added.