NEW REVELATIONS WITH NEW CONTRADICTIONS
By Karine Mangasarian
Yerkir.am
April 28, 2006
Almost half of the countries that have recognized the Armenian
Genocide have done so during the rule of the Armenian National
Movement, ANM’s Aram Manukian said during a roundtable discussion
on the Armenian-Turkish relations with Kiro Manoyan, the director of
the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Bureau’s Office for Political
Affairs.
What’s more, he was the one conducting talks in those countries to
have the Genocide recognized, Manukian said.
Manukian, who criticized the Armenian authorities present policies,
said his party was guided by the policy “There are no eternal friends
or enemies, there are eternal interests.”
Speaking in the context of the Armenian-Turkish relations, he added
that the ANM ruled out the possibility of using third countries
against Turkey, something that the present government has adopted
as its policy when dealing with Turkey. He also said that by keeping
the Armenian Genocide issue on agenda, the Armenian government puts
the country out of all the regional projects that involve Azerbaijan,
Georgia and Turkey.
Kiro Manoyan, in turn, said he was happy to know the ANM was
participating in the Genocide recognition process. “But then what
are their disagreements with the present authorities?”
“What we knew until now was that the Genocide issue was not on the
agenda of the ANM,” Manoyan said.
“Even though Armenia did not raise the Genocide issue then, Turkey’s
position was explicit: it wanted the Armenian authorities to pressure
the Diaspora to end its campaign of the international recognition of
the Armenian Genocide, ” Manoyan added.
“The recognition of the Genocide is a political issue – to maintain
pressure on Turkey,” he said. “Because of our measures, Turkey is
now making mistakes; they are trying to form their Diaspora, stage
protest actions, but fail.
This shows that the present policy is right.”