TER-PETROSIAN REAFFIRMS CONCILIATORY LINE ON TURKEY
By Emil Danielyan
Radio Liberty, Czech Republic
Dec 10 2007
Former President Levon Ter-Petrosian reaffirmed on Saturday his
conciliatory stance on Amenia’s relations with Turkey, saying that
Yerevan should leave it to the worldwide Armenian Diaspora to pursue
international recognition of the 1915 genocide. He also deplored
Armenian efforts to thwart Turkey’s membership in the European Union.
The highly sensitive issue was a major theme of his latest speech at
an anti-government rally in Yerevan, with Ter-Petrosian responding
to government claims that his views on Turkish-Armenian relations are
"pro-Turkish."
Echoing long-standing claims by Armenian nationalist groups, President
Robert Kocharian said in a newspaper interview last week that his
predecessor is "ready to forget the genocide and turn Armenia into
an appendage of Turkey." State television and other media controlled
by Kocharian, for their part, have cited Turkish press commentaries
saying that Ter-Petrosian’s return to power would be welcomed by
Armenia’s historical foe.
"Speaking about my being pro-Turkish are individuals who had
sheepishly served Turks during a lengthy period of their adult life,"
Ter-Petrosian shot back in a blistering reminder of the fact that
Kocharian and Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian had held senior positions
in the Communist hierarchy of Nagorno-Karabakh at a time when it was
ruled by Azerbaijan.
Ter-Petrosian stressed that three generations of his family "fought
against the Turks in one way or another," recalling in particular
their participation in a 1915 siege of several Armenian villages on
the Turkish Mediterranean coast by Ottoman troops.
"My grandfather took part in the heroic battle of Musa Dagh; my
seven-year-old father carried food and water to [Armenian] positions;
while my mother was born in a cave in those days," he told the crowd.
"If French warships had not accidentally passed by the Musa Dagh coast,
then I would not have existed and, to the delight of Robert Kocharian
and Serzh Sarkisian, spoken from this podium today."
"In 1966, at the age of 21, during a demonstration held on the occasion
of the genocide anniversary I was arrested [by the Soviet KGB] and
kept in a Yerevan jail for about a week at a time when Kocharian and
Sarkisian had not even heard about the word genocide," he said.
Ter-Petrosian said he continues to believe that genocide recognition
should not have been included on Armenia’s foreign policy agenda
after his resignation in 1998. "It is time to understand by setting
ultimatums and cornering Turkey nobody can force it to recognize
the Armenian genocide," he said. "I have no doubts that Turkey will
sooner or later recognize the Armenian genocide, but that will take
place not before a normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations but
after the creation of an atmosphere of neighborhood, cooperation and
trust between our countries."
Ter-Petrosian at the same time rejected as "unacceptable and offensive"
Turkey’s calls for the creation of a Turkish-Armenian commission
of historians that would be tasked with determining whether the
mass killings of Ottoman Armenians constituted a genocide. He also
criticized Ankara for its furious reaction to genocide resolutions
adopted by various countries of the world under pressure from their
Armenian communities.
"Turkey must not confuse Armenia with the Diaspora and must not
resent the latter’s behavior because the Diaspora is a consequence
of the genocide," he said. "Had it not committed a genocide, there
would have been no Diaspora."
Armenia’s first post-Communist government headed by Ter-Petrosian
avoided raising the genocide issue in its dealings with Turkey
throughout its tenure from 1990-1998. The Kocharian administration
has likewise stood for an unconditional normalization of bilateral
ties. However, it has declared genocide recognition a major foreign
policy goal and welcomed relevant lobbying efforts by the Diaspora.
The policy change was underscored by Kocharian’s 1998 speech at the
UN General Assembly in which he urged Turkey to come to terms with
one of the darkest episodes of its past.
Ter-Petrosian dismissed such actions as mere gimmicks that have only
antagonized the Turks and made the memory of an estimated 1.5 million
Armenians killed in 1915-1918 an "object of immoral haggling" in the
international arena. He claimed that Yerevan’s policy and Diaspora
lobbying in Europe enable EU governments opposed to Turkey’s entry
to the bloc to "exploit the genocide issue."
"Isn’t it clear that Armenia can neither facilitate, nor impede
Turkey’s membership in the European Union?" he said. "So why on
earth do we send letters to Brussels demanding that the EU does not
start membership talks with Turkey or set genocide recognition as
a precondition?"
"Isn’t it obvious that Turkey’s membership in the EU is beneficial
for Armenia in the economic, political and security terms?" he added.
"What is more dangerous: an EU member Turkey or a Turkey rejected by
the West and oriented to the East?
"Or what is more preferable? An Armenia isolated from the West or an
Armenia bordering the EU? Our country’s foreign policy should have
clearly answered these questions a long time ago."
The Kocharian administration says that Armenia supports, in principle,
Turkey’s accession to the EU but believes that should happen only
after Ankara drops its preconditions for normalizing relations with
Yerevan. "Armenia does not regard Turkey’s potential membership in the
EU as a threat to national security," Prime Minister Sarkisian wrote
in a December 2006 article in "The Wall Street Journal." "Quite the
contrary. We hope it will mean that Turkey will change, and be in a
better position to face both its history and future."
In an interview with Reuters news agency last July, Sarkisian accused
the EU of turning a blind eye to Turkey’s long-standing economic
blockade of Armenia. "Europeans are shy over these issues. They love
to talk about human rights, about democratic values but it’s much
easier to talk rather than to implement anything," he complained.
Armenian lobbying groups in Europe take a harder line, saying
that genocide recognition should be a precondition for Turkey’s
EU membership. One of them, the Brussels-based European Armenian
Federation, plans to stage an anti-Turkish demonstration in the
Belgian capital on Friday. The EU’s governing Council is scheduled
to meet on that day to discuss stalled accession talks with Ankara.