ARMENIAN PRESIDENT IS CONFIDENT, THAT CONSTRUCTIVE DIALOGUE

[Guest]

ARMENIAN PRESIDENT IS CONFIDENT, THAT CONSTRUCTIVE DIALOGUE WITH TURKEY IS NECESSARY

08.09.2000 12.19

08.09.2000, MEDIAMAX, YEREVAN. "The Armenian nation is unfortunately destined to carry the problems of the past century into the new Millennium", - declared the president of Armenia Robert Kocharian on September 7 speaking in the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in New York.

"Turkey's continuing denial of the Genocide of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire has been only intensifying our aspirations for historical justice. Some countries and nations had in the past been burdened by similar problems. However, they managed to overcome them through making moves of reconciliation and with the support of the international community. Penitence is not a humiliation, but it rather elevates individuals and nations. I am confident that a constructive dialogue with Turkey will allow us to jointly pave the way towards co-operation and good neighbourly relations between our two peoples", -stressed Armenian president.

[Guest]

Even though I have strong reservations on Kocharian. In this particular case I am with him. dialogue with Turkey is an absolute necessity.

[Guest]

I think that with the current strategy, loosing of the Diplomatic Battle with Turkey is inevitable. In fact, it has been lost long time ago. Seems like the author of the article below supports that idea.

 

RFE/RL Armenia: Yerevan May Be Losing A Diplomatic Battle

September 18, 2000

 

By Andrew F. Tully

 

Armenia is bordered on the west by Turkey and the east by Azerbaijan -- two

long-time enemies. Lately, Yerevan has chosen to fight these two hostile

nations not on the battlefield, but diplomatically in Washington. But as

RFE/RL senior correspondent Andrew F. Tully reports, it runs a great risk of

losing those two wars.

 

Washington, 18 September 2000 (RFE/RL) -- Two events in Washington last week

highlighted a chilling predicament for Armenia -- long-term U.S. relations

with Turkey, and America's seemingly unquenchable thirst for oil, eventually

could leave Armenia out in the cold.

 

Last Thursday (Sept 14), U.S. Congressman Christopher Smith (R-New Jersey)

convened a hearing of a subcommittee of the House of Representatives'

International Relations Committee. At the hearing, witnesses and committee

members spoke out for and against a resolution that would require the U.S.

government to declare that the Ottoman Empire committed genocide from 1915

to 1923 against Armenians living in Turkey.

 

The hearing was well attended, and speakers for both sides spoke

passionately for their causes. Those who favored the resolution said it is

time for the world to recognize the precursor of 20th-century genocide. They

said the atrocities committed against Armenians emboldened future

practitioners of genocide -- whether in Germany in the 1930s and 40s or

Rwanda in the 1990s.

 

Opponents were equally eloquent. They noted that in 1923, Ataturk threw out

the Ottoman leaders to establish a modern, Westernized, secular state of

Turkey. Therefore, they said, there is no link with the country's current

leadership and those who victimized Armenians.

 

Besides, the resolution's opponents said, Turkey has been a loyal member of

the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for 40 years. And its position in the

eastern Mediterranean Sea is crucial for maintaining a balance between the

East and the West.

 

Three days before the congressional hearing, Heidar Aliev, the president of

Azerbaijan, was in Washington to address a trade

exposition of the United States-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce. Much of

Aliev's speech seemed to be an effort to excuse the slowness of economic

progress in Azerbaijan, a country that is rich in oil. This slowness Aliev

attributed directly to the dispute with Armenia over Nagorno-Artsax, the

enclave in Azerbaijan that is mostly populated by ethnic Armenians.

 

Aliev complained that Armenian forces occupy about 20 percent of his land,

that more than one million Azeris are refugees from these territories, and

that what he called the undue influence of Armenian-Americans prompted the

U.S. Congress to pass Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act in 1992.

Section 907 forbids the U.S. to give any aid to Azerbaijan. The reason: An

Azerbaijani blockade of Armenia.

 

The Azerbaijani president cited a map of his country showing that Armenia

occupies territories that border all but a small part of Nagorno-Artsax.

He then indicated the path of an east-west rail route in southern Azerbaijan

that runs through the Armenian-held territory.

 

"If there is talk of a blockade, the railway line coming from Azerbaijan

along the Iranian border goes to Armenia. So in this map

you can see that 130 kilometers of this railway line is under the occupation

of Armenia."

 

Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Rouben Shugarian says Aliev's contention is

preposterous. Shugarian notes that Azerbaijan has access to many other

countries to the north, south and east -- particularly via the Caspian Sea.

 

Shugarian told RFE/RL that because Armenia is landlocked, it is therefore

easy for Azerbaijan to blockade it from the east.

 

"Azerbaijan is having its border closed with Armenia, and it blockaded the

humanitarian assistance that came from [the] United States to Armenia in

1992. It also blockaded any business activities Armenia had with third

countries through the territory of Azerbaijan. It blockaded the cargo that

was coming from Russia."

 

Shugarian says Azerbaijan's blockade of Armenia began before any military

hostilities broke out between the two nations.

 

Armenia is fighting these continuing disputes with Turkey and Azerbaijan in

Washington. And it is achieving some success. There are many Armenians in

the populous U.S. states of New Jersey in the east and California in the

west. Their influence helped to get Congress to pass Section 907.

 

But U.S. President Bill Clinton wants to repeal the bill and improve

relations with Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan would be the starting point of the

proposed Baku-Ceyhan oil and natural gas pipeline that would move through

Georgia to Turkey's Mediterranean coast to feed the West. No president is

likely to want to jeopardize so great a source of oil.

 

And Thursday's congressional hearing also demonstrates the influence of

Armenian-Americans in Washington. The resolution that was discussed at the

event would be non-binding even if passed by the full Congress. But even if

it were binding, the resolution probably would be vetoed by the president.

No American president is likely to risk offending Turkey and its people by

officially declaring the nation guilty of genocide.

 

Doug Bandow is a syndicated columnist for American newspapers and magazines,

and an analyst on economic and diplomatic issues at the Cato Institute, a

Washington think tank. Bandow says Armenia cannot win the diplomatic battle

in Washington against Turkey.

 

Bandow says Turkey's strategic importance in NATO is too important for the

U.S. to risk alienating the country and its people. He says he can conceive

of no U.S. president or Congress ever taking that risk.

 

However, Bandow told RFE/RL that the country's chances of prevailing

diplomatically over Azerbaijan are better, but not certain. He notes that

Azerbaijan does not own all the Caspian oil, and that a pipeline to the West

does not necessarily have to begin in Baku.

 

"I think this is one of those issues where you have to make the argument

that Azerbaijan is not the only player. So if one sides with Armenia in the

struggle, one really isn't ultimately losing a lot of oil. One may simply be

kind of reshuffling the deck a bit."

 

But Bandow believes that U.S. interests -- that is, oil -- eventually will

win out. And that would leave Armenia a loser on both the Turkish and

Azerbaijani fronts.

 

Still, Shugarian, Armenia's deputy foreign minister, says there is genuine

hope that his nation and Azerbaijan can settle their differences. He points

to the recent meeting between Aliev and Armenian President Robert Kocharian

during the United Nations' Millennium Summit in New York during the week of

September 3. He says 10 direct contacts between the two leaders have taken

place over the past year.