YEREVAN (Combined Sources)—The Armenian Revolutionary Federation, in a statement issued Tuesday, slammed the draft protocols for the establishment and development of relations between Turkey and Armenia, calling their provisions “dangerous.” The protocols were issued Monday by the foreign ministries of the two countries and Switzerland.
ARF Bureau member Hrant Markarian denounced the protocols as “unacceptable,” in an interview with RFE/RL.
“I regret that our president is going to sign a document he has no right to sign,” Markarian told RFE/RL. “In the next two months we will do everything to inform the public about the essence of the agreement and issues hidden in it,” he said.
Markarian told RFE/RL that these concessions alone would not lead Ankara to reopen the Turkish-Armenian border. “I think it is a bit naïve to expect that state [Turkey] to subordinate Azerbaijan’s interests to its relations with Armenia,” he said. “Maybe there is another, hidden agreement whereby during the next two, three or six months the Karabakh conflict will be ‘solved.’ So [that means] all of Turkey’s three preconditions have been accepted.”
Upon the announcement of the protocols, the ARF Bureau and the Supreme Council of Armenia convened an emergency session and issued the following statement:
On August 31, 2009 protocols on the establishment and development of relations between the republics of Armenia and Turkey were officially announced.
Armenia and Armenians entered a new phase, which is encumbered with numerous threats and danger.
It was about these very concerns that the Armenian Revolutionary Federation continued to warn from the onset of the political process by intermittently expressing the following positions:
a. As neighboring states, Armenia and Turkey are bound to take steps to normalize relations. However, good neighborly relations can be established between the two countries only when Turkey recognized the Armenian Genocide and reestablishes the rights of the Armenian people. The establishment of relations without preconditions and lifting of the blockade were mere first steps.
b. The proposal by Armenia to establish relations without preconditions can be deemed a serious concession
c. It is unacceptable to establish relations with Turkey at the expense of our government’s sovereignty and viability, as well as the national rights of our future generations.
Based on these principles, the ARF on several occasions warned that Turkey is leveraging the entire process to benefit its own interests (impeding the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide effort, a pro-Azeri resolution to the Nargorno-Karabakh conflict) and is communicating with Armenia through obvious and veiled preconditions.
It is already evident that the published documents contain the well-known preconditions of the Turkish side. That is, to call into question the veracity of the Armenian Genocide and to invalidate the unwavering rights of the Armenian people. Furthermore, immediately following the release of the protocols, Turkey, through official statements, reiterated its third precondition: it will not undertake any steps that would contradict Azerbaijan’s interests. This means it is continuing to use the Karabakh issue as a precondition for the Armenia-Turkey process.
The ARF continues to insist that the foreign policy of Armenia has veered from its national doctrine and predictable developments will have irreversible consequences.
With these considerations, during this domestic deliberation stage, the ARF will utilize all means to expose the existing dangers within the protocols in an effort to neutralize them.
We call on the Armenian people and the political forces in Armenia to properly assess the Armenia-Turkey relations process with its negative consequences and, in the most unified manner, deter the possible irreversible losses.
Armenian Revolutionary Federation
September 1, 2009
Yerevan
Capitulation—-Surrender and a shameful Agreement
In this protocol Turks and west are deceiving our naive authorities by A- freezing Genocide Cause B- Disregarding our rights for our Ancestoral Lands and C- In the same way they are going to deceive Armenians in Karabakh if Armenian stay passive and do nothing……..
1. The “protocols” never address what steps will be taken “if” the scientific study shows that a Genocide has been committed. The protocols never even mention that possibility, curiously enough, but they do ask for a guarantee for Armenia “not to have any ill feelings’ towards Turkey. It is crystal clear that they want to do away with the Armenian Genocide issue with a bogus, one sided study.
2. By acknowledging Turkey’s borders, Armenia will relinquish any legitimate rights it has for all of its historical lands in Turkey, and will not be able to pursue any reparation for their illegal annexation by Turkey.
3. There are no guarantees that the Turkish markets will be fair to those in Armenia once the borders are opened.
4. Karabagh won a war against the aggressor nation of Azerbaijian, and the Armenian government is involved in talks that will give back Karabagh’s rightful war spoils, which are by the way historically Armenian lands.
The question to the Armenian Government is the following:
You are going to make ALL of the Turkish dreams come true… Forget the Genocide, give away our historical lands, open the border to a nation that cannot wait to infiltrate our country and finish off whatever economy we have….WHAT ARE YOU GETTING FOR YOUR COUNTRY IN RETURN?… WHAT? NOTHING! If you are this enamoured by Turkey, why not also change our religion?
ALL THESE AGREEMENTS WILL BE GOOD FOR TURKEY, GOOD FOR THE EU THAT IS WAITING WITH OPEN ARMS TO GREET TURKEY, AND THEY WILL BE DEVASTATING FOR ARMENIA. So, again, what is the Armenian government getting in return for all these concessions… Clearly and amazingly enough, NOTHING!
Turkey is imposing preconditions, why not us. These should be our preconditions:
1. Recognition of the horrific crime of Genocide. Reparations for life, land and property.
We should agree to a historical commission THAT SHOULD SERVE TO EDUCATE THE TURKS ABOUT WHAT THEIR ANCESTORS DID, we already know what happened to us. Since Ataturk changed the Turkish alphabet and rewrote their history, they are the ones who need the “scientific” study to snap them out of their national amnesia.
2. Opening of existing borders WITHOUT the recognition of their legitimacy until all reparations for land has been paid or land has been returned to us.
3. All these talks will not proceed if Karabagh’s independence is not accepted by Armenia, Turkey and Azerbaijan at the same time, because Karabagh’s self determination is a democratic legal right.
With a governement such as this, who needs enemies?… We need to stop being a nation of sleepers, followers, dreamers, foreigner worshipers, and come together to draw a unified vision for our nation, our people and our new generation, a detailed plan of where we want to go, and a uniform foreign policy so that Diaspora, Armenia and Artsakh are all uniformly on the same page. We need to reawaken our national pride and dignity. It is better to be isolated and keep the status quo and try to become stronger, because we are doomed by the alternative anyhow…
armenian people has right to not accept any idiotik agreement and and nobody can and must go against will of armenian people.
I am confident the Turkish parliament itself will not pass this agreement. Mark my word.