Through the combined efforts of the members of the “Nikol Abghalyan” student union, many students had come (we later found out that they had been arrested) to be present at the conference. The conference began in the small auditorium of the NAS, however, since there were too many people in the auditorium and some were standing up, the first speaker-vice president of the National Assembly-suggested continuing the conference in the big auditorium of the NAS after the first speech. What was the reason for doing that? Was it because of the environment in the auditorium, or was it because the vice-president realized that he was surrounded by three groups? It is hard to say, however, one of the students got a heart ache and while some people were trying to help the student and others were moving to the big auditorium of the NAS, the leader of the “Nikol Abghalyan” student union assigned one young person: “Make sure the students don’t leave.”
V. Hovhannisyan’s speech was about “the role that patriotic unions play for social and national issues”. Why is the Sevr Treaty being remembered after 85 years? Vahan Hovhannisyan himself answered to the question that he asked. “Perhaps the Sevr Treaty has been forgotten and taken out of the agenda as a method of solving issues, however, the issues that the Sevr Treaty proposed to solve in the Southern Caucasus and the surrounding regions have still not been solved,” and the reason for this, according to him, is that “Sevr was the best method that had been found at the time.” Then, the vice-speaker of the National Assembly started to explain as to “what were the technical difficulties that created an obstacle for the Sevr Treaty to be passed.”
The technical difficulty was that there were two governments in Turkey in 1920-the government of the Sultan in Istanbul and the revolutionary government of the Kemals in Ankara. “The Sultan signed the Sevr Treaty, but Ankara refused. That is why the Sevr Treaty remained in question,” said the speaker. He then said that he would like to talk about the treaty that replaced the Sevr Treaty and whether or not that was legal. “They substituted the Sevr Treaty with the Moscow Treaty which was signed on March 16, 1921. But there was no Bolshevik power on March 16. Many people forget about that,” says V. Hovhannisyan. According to Hovhannisyan, the Bolsheviks were exiled from Armenia with the revolution on February 18, 1921 and the people of Armenia got back legal authorities through that revolution. “That legal authority has not signed any treaty-neither the Moscow Treaty nor the Kars Treaty. If the Sevr Treaty is a cause for so much suspicion, since there were two powers in Turkey, Moscow and the Kars Treaty formed on the basis of the Moscow Treaty are also suspicious,” he explains. This doesn’t mean that Armenia must take measures and make the political situation even more complicated, but according to V. Hovhannisyan, we must at least know that we have the bases for doing that.
As he referred to the patriotic unions, in the opinion of the National Assembly vice-speaker, a patriotic union is a type of NGO which tries to get back the “substitute” for the homeland. According to V. Hovhannisyan, there are two types of patriotic unions in Armenia-classical (“Igdir”, “Vaspurakan”, “Adana”) and other patriotic unions; meaning, “the remainders of the Armenians who have lived in the old lands who have the issue of the lost homeland.” Hovhannisyan also states that there are other patriotic unions in Armenia and their goal is totally different and their lands are not lost. He listed the names of the patriotic unions belonging to the residents of Goris, Karabagh, Aparan, and North Javakhk. “What can be the one thing that unites all those patriotic unions? We think that that is bringing up the issue of the Sevr Treaty once again,” said V. Hovhannisyan and added that this doesn’t mean that the treaty must be included in the foreign politics agenda of Armenia. “It is too early for that,” he says and claims that we should all be realistic.
The next speaker, doctor of political sciences Armen Ayvazyan, was not too realistic when making his speech. The title of the speech was “The consequences for not using the Sevr Treaty in the Middle East and international politics.” During his speech, Mr. Ayvazyan pointed out that the large countries that had “done away with the Sevr Treaty” did not have any outlooks and were unintelligent. According to Ayvazyan, the Sevr treaty could solve three issues-including the issues concerning Armenians and Kurds. In his opinion, as a result of aborting the Sevr Treaty, the issue of the Kurds remains unsolved, not signing the treaty was the cause for Fascism and Turkey was the first Fascist country in Europe. Then Mr. Ayvazyan started to explain what we mean when we say “the Armenian Issue”. “The main focus of the Armenian issue is to get back the lands of historical Armenia, at least some territorial space where we can develop Armenian civilization and keep its existence,” he says more in detail and adds that the Armenian issue is the issue of security for the Armenian people and it has two prerequisites: forming a strong and potential Armenian government and guaranteeing the security of the nation by land. A. Ayvazyan believes that today, people don’t pay much attention to the fact that it is possible that Armenia will no longer exist if Azerbaijan succeeds in invading the country with the direct or indirect help of Turkey in planning out the steps needed to be taken. “The Armenian issue has not been legally solved. The Armenian issue is interpreted in different ways through, first of all, the Karabagh conflict and then recently the Javakhk issue,” says Ayvazyan. In his words, the guarantees for security given by international organizations are just an illusion and we must be the ones securing ourselves on our soil. The speeches didn’t end here, however, some had literally fallen asleep when the third speaker came up and it is hard to determine what they were seeing in their dreams.