– Mr. Grigoryan, it is indisputable what advantages the opening of the Armenian-Turkish border will bring. In your opinion, what is the price that Armenia is going to pay for that?
– Let’s just speak about what price Turkey will pay. The price that Turkey pays at present is high even for a powerful country like Turkey. Let me tell you what I mean. In Azerbaijan hysteria started. The rally held in Istanbul was thought to be organized by the Turks but in fact it was initiated by the Azerbaijani people who work and live in Turkey. Azerbaijan even threatens that it won’t provide Turkey with gas through the famous gas pipeline Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum. The Turkey-Azerbaijan quarrel put Turkey in a quite difficult state. Let me speak about the price that Armenia will pay. First, it is important that by opening the border with Turkey we break the monopoly of Azerbaijan to Turkey because the opening of the border will mean that the role of Azerbaijan in the region will drastically fall. Besides that the power of Azerbaijan to Karabakh issue will decrease as well. That is the reason why hysteria started in Azerbaijan. Secondly we need open borders to communicate with our neighbor on land. We also need that to capture Turkey’s food market.
– Do you exclude that Turkey will be the one to occupy the Armenian market?
– Unfortunately I have to say that many so-called patriots say that Turkey will do so. This is a simple hint that the abilities of the Turkish businessmen are higher than of the Armenian ones. That is called racism and I am against that. Our businessmen are flexible and will fill our market not only with the Turkish goods.
– Besides that the role of the Armenian oligarchs and the monopolists in the Armenian economy will drastically decrease.
– I think that the ones, who express concerns that Turkey will conquer our market and will damage the pockets of local producers, are brought up by the producers. Yes, if Turkey opens the border the local oligarchs will lose their monopolies and will not be able to receive super profits. We also need open borders to make our economy and market more competitive.
– There are many advantages; however there are allegations that the price of opening the border will be the sacrifice of Karabakh. This becomes more grounded after the statement of the Turkish premier Erdogan, who said that only after the agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan around the NKR issue, will it be possible to open the border.
– If you have noticed the dynamics of the last year was that Armenia was almost able to separate the NKR conflict from the Armenia-Turkey relations. Our major goal should be to separate those two issues. And we already see positive progress. But we are not naïve to think that Turkey will abide with that and will not bring up its own nuances on NKR conflict. For example, three years ago Turkey was definitely saying that Armenia should remove its troops from the occupied territories. Now they are speaking about the two-three regions. It means that their approach was tempered to a level that we can speak to them in a serious manner. But it is clear that Karabakh cannot become a trading point for the Armenian-Turkish relations. In my perception Armenia currently keeps its position in a right way.
– You have mentioned that the opening of the Armenian-Turkish border will degrade the role of Azerbaijan in the region. Azerbaijan in its turn is saying that the opening of the border will even more instigate the situation in the region and will specifically even more irritate the Armenian-Azerbaijani relations. Do you exclude that this will make Azerbaijan resolve the NKR conflict by using military force?
– Azerbaijan will try to resolve the conflict in a military way in any event. The relentless attitude of Azerbaijan regarding the NKR conflict will bring the Azerbaijani to the point when they will be resolving it by using force. The use of force is however unacceptable. This will be a great disaster not only for the two countries but the whole region. I hope the leadership of Azerbaijan will have sufficient wisdom to refrain itself from that but I’d like to specially mention that they may be staring the war not only in the Armenian-Turkish context. If you have noticed the militarization in our region was launched by Azerbaijan. They have started to acquire weapons.
– On what grounds will Azerbaijan use force to resolve the conflict when there is the signed agreement? One of the main provisions of the mentioned agreement excludes the use of force. Besides that the OSCE Minsk Group, European structures and others have publicly excluded the use of military force.
– In my opinion it is the restraining circle. Yes, the international arena will not abide with the use of force. In the event of war the international community will definitely be on the side of Armenia. The August events of last year in Georgia must become a precedent for every country. What did Sahakashvili want to do in a formal sense? He wanted to restore the territorial integrity of his country. But as he was the one, who started the war, he received minimum support. It was incomparably less than we all expected. Russia entered Georgia with its troops (this in the aspect of international norms was a terribly crime). But the whole world accepted that by criticizing. A number of states till now condemn Georgia. What is it connected with? Mistake number one – Georgia was the first to start its military actions. If Azerbaijan starts military actions the whole world will fix this as a violation of international norms and will condemn Azerbaijan.
– Nevertheless, you mentioned that Azerbaijan is acquiring new types of weapons. It has even started production of its own weapons. And as it’s known year by year it is increasing its military budget. In this regard, how do you estimate the capabilities of Azerbaijan to resolve the conflict with the use of force?
– To tell the truth, even I don’t see such chances for Azerbaijan. The army of Karabakh is quite strong but our logic is that we should find a common language with Azerbaijan and avoid military collision. For example, if our government is not able to engage in a dialog then we should work more actively. I don’t imagine how they can not understand that the use of military force will cause real disaster.
– Do you think there are angles of common language with Azerbaijan, which would exclude the option of the war and open at least a visible prospect for the solution of the conflict?
– Look, Georgia was developing quite dynamically. Let’s not lie to anybody by the amount of investments that was entering Georgia during the past three years was more than the investments of Armenia and Azerbaijan jointly. But a single mistake of Georgia dragged the country backward for a long time. Today even Turkey and Azerbaijan don’t dare to plan energetic and transport projects in the territory of Georgia. Turkey plan energetic projects in the territory of Iran. There are even rumors about starting projects in the territory of Armenia. Azerbaijan wishes to export oil and natural gas through the territory of Russia. Do you understand that because of one mistake Georgia had stopped to be attractive as it was a year ago? So what should Armenia and Azerbaijan do? You have mentioned the Maindorf agreement, which was signed in Moscow a year ago. There is a provision there about environment of trust, based on which the dialog of Armenians and Azerbaijanis should start. By the way, the Armenian and Turkish societies are quite active in this direction. During the past 5-6 years a pretty prosperous field is created for good dialog and basis of that is the good cooperation between the leadership of Armenia and Turkey. These relations with Azerbaijan are at zero level. Even the experts hardly ever communicate. The first good step would be if the Azerbaijani start to cooperate with the Karabakhis and the Armenian society in order to create an environment of trust.
– By returning to the opening of the border what do you find more possible? Do you think first the Turkish-Armenian border will be opened and then diplomatic relations will be established or the other way around?
– As much as I understand about three months ago the impression was that the opening of the border would follow the establishment of diplomatic relations. For Turkey as a first step it would be easier to start diplomatic relations first and only then open the border. Azerbaijan cannot bring up any counter-arguments regarding the establishment of diplomatic relations but the opening of borders as we already discussed is a different question. The establishment of diplomatic relations will automatically resolve several issues. First the issue of the recognition of the genocide should be set apart from the main policies and diplomacy. Te groups of genocide examiners must consist of historians.
– Don’t you think that it is a trap to establish a group of historians?
– I agree. But I’d separate the political approach from the approach of the historians. Our historians are saying that genocide is an irrefutable fact and I agree with that conviction. But when you analyze the issue as a political scientist you realize that certain steps should be taken not to pressure on Turkey. We should first open the border, start the trade, cooperate in the sphere of culture and only after the establishment of environment of trust would it be possible to have the genocide recognized on part of Turkey. The political approach must be separated from the professional approach of the historians. Let us remember that the Turkish society wasn’t informed for almost 70-80 years. Only during the last several years the Turkish historians have started to examine the issue; they communicate and write articles. And we see the positive dynamics as the Turkish society gradually integrates within this issue. There are many honest people in Turkey and am sure that very quickly the Turkish society, the experts will decide on what actually happened in 1915.