– The foreign policy of Armenia has become too active since you are in office.
– I’d like to highlight that the foreign policy of the country is defined by the president of Armenia, and I am coordinating the foreign affairs ministry, the main mission of which is to implement and reach the goals set by the president of the country.
– What would you say about this phase of the Armenian-Turkish relations? Especially in consideration of the fact that these relations have not ever gone so far.
– I’d say that the relations have not ever been so close because when the Turkish president was invited to Armenia by the initiative of the president of Armenia to watch the soccer match, it was new stimulus for developing relations. There were very important meetings with participation of the presidents of Armenia and Turkey. The president of Armenia and the prime minister of Turkey had a very important meeting in Davos as well. As well as the foreign affairs ministers of the two countries have met for about ten times. Thus, we succeeded and as a result made the announcement which was made on the 22nd, which reads about the development in the process and negotiations.
– There are opinions that this announcement was a surprise and our positions were jeopardized.
– What is the surprise? The president and foreign affairs minister of Armenia have numerously announced about Armenia’s intention to develop relations with Turkey without any preconditions. Thus, with this announcement we say that we are moving toward this goal too and toward opening the borderline without any preconditions. What’s the matter with being cheated or jeopardized?
– You allege that there are no preconditions, but there are other opinions in Turkey and there are opinions in Armenia that we will compromise.
– The impression is that we do not believe ourselves and we are suspicious about our abilities, we don’t believe that Armenia may have any development, and we always think that if we succeed in something there should be something bad behind. In other words, people think that if we are climbing a tree, we will fall by all means. Or we think that they’re going to cheat us. Who will jeopardize us? Turkey? Turkey first of all will jeopardize itself, the international community, the United States, Russia and Euro Union. We are fair and consistent in our intention: Armenia intends to develop relations with Turkey without any preconditions. And I think that we have the impression that Turkey wants to develop relations too.
– There was an announcement on the threshold of the genocide memorial day, which was a reason for different opinions. What would you say about this?
– When we say there are no preconditions we mean that there are no preconditions concerning the issue of Karabakh conflict, and there are no preconditions concerning the genocide recognition issue either. Developing relations does not jeopardize the issue of the genocide recognition in any manner, and both the president and foreign affairs minister have said this for many times. I hope that when we develop relations the people to put flowers at the genocide memorial will not be the Armenian officials only but the Turkish ones as well. Why can’t we do the same as Charles de Gaulle and Adenauer? I believe that the day will come and the Armenian and Turkish leaders will do the same thing. When will it be better to do that when we reach that date, in April? I think that it may symbolize certain things. Maybe the announcement of April 22 symbolized something too.
– Anyway, why April 22 night?
– Do you mean why at night? There is no understanding of night, day, evening or morning in diplomacy. Generally negotiations have certain logics resulting in some developments, the next step after which is to inform people. I remember the time when the Senate of France was discussing the issue of recognizing the genocide, they were discussing it at night and the decision was adopted at 4a.m. No one was surprised and asked why the discussion was held at night and the decision made early in the morning.
– There is an opinion that Armenia is moving toward developing relations with Turkey as a result of the last year events in Georgia and global crisis and Armenia has no other way but developing relations with Turkey.
– You perfectly know that the president of Armenia initiated the contact with his Turkish counterpart several months before the Georgian events, when the Armenian economy was developing rapidly as during the past 7-8 years as well. In other words, this opinion is wrong and this decision to develop relations with Turkey was made consciously.
– The term roadmap has created some confusion in Armenia. What is it about? What provisions does it have?
– You know, it’s a very simple agreement: the roadmap is a timeline for specific steps and actions to be undertaken by the parties for the purpose of enforcing and implementing their agreements. There are no provisions and principles in this roadmap. The principles and provisions will be written in those contracts or contract, which will be signed between the parties in the future.
– What would you say about the opinion of the international community concerning the Armenian-Turkish relations?
– If we lived in the soviet times I would say that the whole progressive world is welcoming our initiative. However we can surely say that a lot of countries such as the US, Russia, EU, Switzerland, which is serving as intermediate, and almost all other countries are welcoming and supporting our efforts. Maybe there is a country, which does not like this idea, and this country is Azerbaijan. However I think that this is a wrong policy because I believe that developing the Armenian-Turkish relations will be a good impulse for the entire region, and Azerbaijan is a part of that region too.
– What do you think about the fact that Obama used the term “Meds Eghern” in his speech addressed to Armenians?
– First, Obama’s announcement was a step of improvement compared to the other presidents of the United States. There are strong definitions in this announcement. Obama said that he had expressed his opinion concerning the events of 1915 for many times and he had not changed his mind. Obama used the term “Meds Eghern”, but we, the Armenians, are using both the term “Meds Eghern” and Genocide to describe the events of 1915. However, Armenians were expecting that Obama would use the term Genocide. As we are speaking of the American president, I would like to emphasize that his support to the Armenian-Turkish relations is very important.
– In the recent period the negotiation process within the OSCE Minsk Group has become rather active too. The co-chairmen are visiting the region every month and paying visits to Yerevan, Stepanakert, Baku and other places. However there is an impression that the process does not move forward. Do you agree with this opinion?
– Yes, I agree with the opinion that the co-chairmen are in the region now and the negotiation continues. During several months Azerbaijan has been refusing to continue the talks based on the principles of Madrid and was trying to make the parties continue the negotiation based on the document proposed by Azerbaijan and adopted by the UN General Assembly. But we know that the co-chair countries were against the mentioned draft and neither of the EU countries supported that bill. Only 39 countries out of 192 voted for the mentioned bill. During several months Azerbaijan tried to make the parties adopt this resolution as the basement of the negotiation. Azerbaijan has been speaking of only one principle during many months: it was speaking of territorial integrity and addressing aggressive announcements. During the recent period numerous announcements and documents which correspond with our policy have been adopted by international institutions. There has not been a single document adopted on the issue of Karabakh in the recent period which is out of our interests. One of such documents is the resolution of Moscow, which has the signatures of the presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia on it. Even in several days Azerbaijan put some provisions of the mentioned resolution under question. In the beginning of December three resolutions were adopted in Helsinki: the resolutions were adopted by 56 ministers of the OSCE, as well as by the foreign affairs ministers of the co-chair countries and by the Euro Union. All these three resolutions and announcements are consistent with our interests and we fully agree with the opinions that are reflected in the mentioned announcements and we support them, thus we believe that if we stay loyal to the adopted documents, maybe we will succeed. In the beginning of the year Azerbaijan tried to do something in the UN again: it spread memorandums and these four memorandums were an obstacle for the process of negotiations as well. The co-chair countries condemned this policy on part of Azerbaijan. There are some positive changes in the process of Karabakh conflict settlement because even the Azeri president has made announcements concerning settling the conflict based on international principles, i.e. all the principles. This is a real tendency. There have been three meetings in participation of the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Saint-Petersburg, Moscow and Zurich. The presidents may meet in the near future too, and this meeting may take place in May. We hope that this meeting will be positive and constructive and will give an opportunity to activate the negotiation, move forward and agree the policies in terms of the conflict settlement.
– There are different opinions and ideas about the issues of Karabakh and Armenian-Turkish relations, which serves a reason for some confusion. I hope our interview has provided answers to some of the questions people have about the ongoing processes.
– I would like to also say that I am very attentive to the ideas that experts and analysts express and I try to use the positive recommendations and ideas they have. But indeed there are people who say that they don’t know what we are doing but still whatever we are doing is wrong. They say we are doing wrong because the ones who are doing it are not they but us. They also don’t try even to say what they would be if they were in our place. This looks like a person saying that he will not enter the water until he learns swimming, and stays on the bank of the river without having learnt how to swim and gives advises concerning dangers from aside. Governments should be brave and dare make decisions and take responsibilities concerning important and crucial decisions. Today the international community respects Armenia. What I mean is mere respect and I don’t use sentimental words such as love, they just respect us. They respect us and it is natural because we are representing a state, we have our interests, problems, and also we are trying to understand the interests and problems of other states as well. Accordingly, we are also trying to compare those interests and find solutions which would be acceptable by every party. First of all we are trying to make it be consistent with our interests, comply with the interests of our state and people.