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    Categories: 2020

RFE/RL Armenian Report – 08/11/2020

                                        Tuesday, 

Armenia, Turkey In Fresh Feud Over Post-WWI Treaty


Barbed wire, pictured against the backdrop of Mount Ararat, marks Armenia's 
closed border with Turkey

The diplomatic agencies of Armenia and Turkey have exchanged acrimonious remarks 
this week over a century-old treaty viewed differently from Yerevan and Ankara.

A conference was held in Armenia on August 10 to mark the 100th anniversary of 
the Treaty of Sevres that was signed between the Allies of World War I, a 
coalition led by France, Britain, the United States and others, against the 
Central Powers, including the Ottoman Empire.

The 1920 treaty that was never ratified by Turkey, if implemented, would, in 
particular, have given Armenia a much vaster territory than it had, including 
access to the Black Sea.

In his address to scholars attending the Yerevan conference Armenian Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian described the treaty signed in a Parisian suburb as “a 
historical fact”.

“Just as the Treaty of Versailles established peace in Europe, in the same way, 
the Treaty of Sevres was meant to bring peace to the former Western Asian 
territories of the Ottoman Empire. It put an end to the war-driven sufferings 
and deprivations experienced by the peoples of our region. It heralded the end 
of the ‘cursed years’,” Pashinian said.

“The Treaty of Sevres reaffirmed our nation’s indisputable historical 
association with the Armenian Highland, wherein the Armenian people had 
originated, lived, developed their statehood and culture for millennia,” he 
added.

The remarks by Pashinian and other Armenian leaders, including President Armen 
Sarkissian, on the occasion elicited a strong reaction from Turkey that 
described the Treaty of Sevres as a case that “put forward the disgraceful 
blueprints of invasion and destruction.”

“The Honorable Turkish Nation sent the Sevres [Treaty] to the ash heap of 
history through its heroic War of Liberation, followed by the Peace Treaty of 
Lausanne of 24 July 1923. It is not surprising to see that those who opt for 
drawing animosity instead of a lesson from history after the lapse of a century 
hope for help from this document,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a 
statement published on its official website on Monday.

Reacting to the statement made from Ankara, Armenian Foreign Ministry 
spokesperson Anna Naghdalian on August 11 said that “it once again demonstrates 
the inability of that country [Turkey] to face its past.”

“While evading to face its past and urging others to ‘take lessons from history 
instead of animosity’, Turkey continues its traditional policy of justifying the 
Armenian Genocide and threatening the Armenian people with new atrocities,” 
Naghdalian said in an official commentary.

“Turkey’s steps towards undermining the peace and security in our region and its 
military posturing against Armenia are part of the expansionist policy of the 
Turkish Government which is aimed at destabilizing its neighboring regions. Only 
the reconsideration of such a policy and the capacity to face the past by Turkey 
will pave a way for genuine reconciliation between the peoples in our region,” 
the Armenian Foreign Ministry representative underscored.

Armenia and Turkey have no diplomatic relations. Internationally backed efforts 
for rapprochement in 2008-2009 eventually led to no normalization and the border 
between the two neighboring countries remains closed to date.




Pashinian Criticized For ‘Hasty’ Congratulations To Lukashenka

        • Narine Ghalechian

Police block demonstrators during a rally after the Belarusian presidential 
election in Minsk on August 9

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has heard criticism in Armenia over his “hasty” 
congratulations to Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka on his re-election 
in a ballot disputed by his main opposition challenger.

In his official message to Lukashenka on Monday Pashinian expressed his 
confidence that “through our joint efforts we will continue to strengthen the 
friendship between our peoples, to expand mutually beneficial cooperation 
between our countries both bilaterally and within the framework of international 
organizations and integration associations.”


Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian (R) meeting with Belarus President 
Alyaksandr Lukashenka in Yerevan, September 30, 2019
Belarus’s Central Election Commission said preliminary official results from the 
August 9 presidential election showed incumbent President Lukashenka winning a 
landslide victory with more than 80 percent of the vote, compared to less than 
10 percent for his main rival, Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya.

Tsikhanouskaya, who drew tens of thousands of people to her campaign rallies, 
refused to recognize the preliminary official results announced on Monday.

The ballot in Belarus was followed by violent clashes between police and 
thousands of protesters who say the official results from the election 
commission were rigged.

A human rights group in Minsk said that at least one protester was killed in the 
clashes, but Belarus’s Interior Ministry denied that.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on August 10 condemned the 
violence in Belarus, calling on the Belarusian government to “accurately” count 
and publish the poll’s results.

Armenia’s leading human rights activist Artur Sakunts believes that in such 
conditions a hasty congratulatory message from a leader like Pashinian who 
himself came to power due to mass street protests was unacceptable.

In a Facebook post Sakunts, who heads the Vanadzor office of the Helsinki 
Citizens’ Assembly, also drew parallels between the current developments in 
Belarus and Armenia’s post-election protests in 2008 in which 10 people were 
killed and for which former President Robert Kocharian is currently on trial in 
Yerevan.

He wrote: “How can a state whose prime minister congratulates dictator 
Lukashenka later prosecute Kocharian for the same? This is a complete 
anachronism of values and principles... This is just absurd.”


Human rights activist Artur Sakunts (file photo)

Sakunts stressed that in such conditions the leader of a democratic country 
should not send congratulatory messages at least until final official results 
are published. “If he wants to show his attitude in any way, he should at least 
express his concern over the fact of human rights violations and call for the 
resolution of all issues within the framework of the rule of law,” the human 
rights activist said.

Opposition Bright Armenia party leader Edmon Marukian also believes that 
Pashinian hurried by congratulating Lukashenka. He said that he saw a “conflict 
of values” between the track record of Armenia’s current governing force and the 
prime minister’s congratulatory message.

“I would wait for the processes of disputing the election results by the 
opposition to go through at least internal instances and only then make a 
decision on that. In this regard, the prime minister took a hasty step,” 
Marukian said. “One protester already died [in Belarus in clashes with police]. 
More than 3,000 people have been detained. Opposition leaders are in jail, media 
leaders and journalists are in jail. And the prime minister is putting it all 
aside and hurrying to congratulate [Lukashenka].”

The prime minister’s spokesperson Mane Gevorkian refused to comment on the 
criticism, but said that she was aware of that and followed it.

Ruben Rubinian, a member of Pashinian’s My Step alliance who heads the 
parliament’s foreign relations committee, has dismissed the criticism, saying 
that he sees nothing unacceptable in the Armenian prime minister’s 
congratulations to Lukashenka.

“In general, international relations are different from domestic politics. 
International partnership, relations between the heads of state have a different 
level and have other components,” Rubinian said.

Armenia is a member of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union and Collective 
Security Treaty Organization both of which also include Belarus.

Other leaders of the alliances, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and 
Kazakhstan’s President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev, also sent congratulatory telegrams 
to Lukashenka on his re-election.

Belarus’s autocratic leader who turns 66 later this month has occupied the 
presidential post since 1994.




Schools In Armenia To Reopen On September 15

        • Robert Zargarian

Schools in Armenia that have remained closed due to the coronavirus pandemic 
since March will open their doors to students on September 15, according to 
Education Minister Arayik Harutiunian.

Harutiunian said on Monday that the issue was discussed by senior government 
officials coordinating the coronavirus state of emergency earlier that day.

The minister added that vocational training colleges, music and art schools will 
also reopen on September 15.

All establishments must comply with sanitary and hygienic rules set by the 
government, Harutiunian stressed.

According to the minister, decisions on universities and a number of other 
educational institutions will be made within the next week.

“Authorities overseeing the state of emergency, other our colleagues and the 
ministry have jointly developed detailed procedures and guidelines on all 
issues, which will be published and shared in the coming days,” Harutiunian said 
in a Facebook post.

“Dear teachers, parents and students, in the coming weeks we must work together 
to ensure a successful start and a smooth course of the academic year, taking 
into account the restrictions caused by the pandemic and excluding media 
provocations,” the minister added.

All schools, universities and other general education institutions have remained 
closed since the beginning of the coronavirus epidemic in March when they 
switched to distance learning to ensure the continuity of the educational 
process.

The current state of emergency in Armenia is due to end on August 12, but the 
government plans to extend it for another month.


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2020 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

 


Edgar Tavakalian: