The ARF Central Committee Eastern Region released the following statement after Armenian President Serge Sarkisian met with Armenian American organizations in New York City on Oct. 3.
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Today, representatives of the ARF Central Committee Eastern Region were present at a meeting between Armenia President Serge Sarkisian and various eastern United States Armenian American organizations at the Palace Hotel in New York City.
We attended to tell President Sarkisian why the ARF opposes the Armenia-Turkey protocols in their current state. We urged President Sarkisian to stop the dangerous protocols signing and ratification process and recommit himself and his government to establishing diplomatic relations with Turkey that don’t endanger the inalienable rights of the entire Armenian Nation.
We pointed to those parts of the protocols that are especially adverse to the Armenian Nation’s interests, including the sections that:
1. Promise that Armenia will formally recognize Turkey’s current border, thus validating the dispossession of Western Armenia and waiving the right of the Armenian Nation to negotiate fully over Armenian Genocide reparations.
2. Promise that Armenia will permit the Armenian Genocide to be assessed “impartially” and “scientifically” using historic documents, as if the fact of the genocide has not been already researched in that manner exhaustively. Such a formulation opens the path toward rendering the genocide debatable.
3. Promise that Armenia will defend the integrity of its neighboring nations’ territorial claims, thereby jeopardizing the self-determination of the people of Nagorno-Karabagh.
We sounded these alarms and emphasized our serious concerns to President Sarkisian face-to-face on behalf of our members and supporters in the eastern United States. However, during the course of the meeting, it became clear to us that our appeals were falling on deaf ears.
The Armenian government’s defense of the protocols baffles us when their content clearly evinces Armenia’s abdication to Turkey and her long-standing and openly held anti-Armenia and anti-Nagorno-Karabagh agenda. President Sarkisian apparently has not heeded our and others’ warnings about Turkey’s open anti-Armenian political ambitions, choosing instead to repeat unconvincing claims that the protocols contain no preconditions and represent a great step forward for Armenia-Turkey diplomatic relations.
We attended the meeting, conveyed our message, and received President Sarkisian’s unbending response. At this point, we can only hope that President Sarkisian seriously entertains our concerns and those he has already heard—and will continue to hear—from the Armenian Diaspora and back home in Armenia. President Sarkisian’s failure to take heed and recess the protocol signing and ratification process will lead the Armenian Nation into a dangerous political thicket from which she and her people will not emerge unscathed.
ARF Central Committee
Eastern Region
Oct. 3, 2009
Unfotunately it is obvious that the Armenian President is a hostage to the super powers and will do what they tell him
He MUST be removed before is to late.
But how?
It’s obvious that this whole “world tour” is a sham by now being conducted only for posterity’s sake rather than for actually listening to Diasporan views worldwide. It’s time to openly call for Sarkisyan’s resignation. The Diaspora represents more than 50% of the world Armenian population, a competent and honest leader would not ignore such a voice.
Also considering the fervent interest that Hillary Clinton has suddenly taken in Armenian issues with her cheering, meddling, and prodding of the issue forward, there must be a whole lot more here involved than meets the eye.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that the ongoing “Diaspora Tour” of Mr. Sarkissian is not intended at all to hear the concerns of more than eight million Armenians living outside Armenia proper and adjust his administration’s policies vis-a-vis Turkey accordingly,but rather a “Soviet style” charade to give his disastrous policies a facade of legitimacy.
Therefore, it is incumbent for all the Diaspora organizations to immediately send an open letter to the Parliament and people of Armenia, stating in no uncertain terms that in the event the government of Mr.Sarkissian goes ahead with it’s intended approval of the infamous Protocols, all the Diaspora organizations, representing the majority of Armenians in the world, will consider the current government illegitimate and not representing the interests of the Armenian Nation.As a consequence, the Diaspora organizations will suspend all contacts and cooperation with the current administration and only continue the programs that directly benefit the people of Armenia.
It is high time for the government, the Parliament and the people of Armenia to realize that the survival and future prosperity of the Armenian Nation depends not on making shortsighted secret deals with our avowed enemies and their superpower handlers, but on the combined efforts of the Armenians in Diaspora and in Armenia proper, based on open and mutually respectful relationship.
No Armenian,be it a President or a Catholicos, is authorized to speak or act in the name of the Armenian Nation without first obtaining its’ consent!
It is also high time for the Armenian government to change their condescending and patronizing attitude towards the Diaspora Armenians.Instead of creating a useless “Ministry of Diaspora” to give an appearance of importance attached to the subject, a genuine and sustained effort should be made on all levels to bring both halves of our Nation together, so that one day,hopefully not in too distant a future, we can all freely live and prosper together in our ancestral homeland.
President Sarkisian is nothing more then a traitor. If he declines to listen to the demands of the diaspora then his removal from office must be the number one priority to all Armenians.