Last week, the Convention on Economic Issues was organized by the
Armenian World Congress (AWC) in Yerevan. Despite the fact that the
convention was orientated towards economy, there were also political
discussions. On one hand, the participants of the convention tried to
ease the tension concerning Russia’s closing of the Higher Lars border,
and on the other hand, President of the Armenian Union in Russia and
the Armenian World Congress Ara Abrahamyan expressed his
dissatisfaction for Armenia’s authorities with whom he has bad
relations with at the present. Besides all of this, during an event
organized by the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia there were
certain speeches made but nobody really paid any attention to them. In
particular, the speeches were made by Ara Abrahamyan about the Armenian
Genocide and Armenia-Turkey relations. In order to raise awareness of
the organization, the Armenian World Congress is involved in
recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
Perhaps this is the reason why the structure does not “speak in the
same language” with other NGOs and political organizations from the
Diaspora. The recognition of the Armenian Genocide is one of the
priorities of those organizations. Let’s get back to Ara Abrahamyans’
speech in Yerevan. “During the past year in May, the Armenian World
Congress organized a conference with many leading scientists from many
parts of the world in order to create an experimental board involved in
the recognition of the Armenian Genocide. The board is called on
forming an All-Armenian orientation towards the improvement of
Armenia-Turkey relations. The main issue concerns the recognition of
the Armenian Genocide by the Turkish authorities, the amount of
compensations for the damages caused and constituting the demands for
the return of lands.” Let’s pay close attention to the last sentence.
So, the AWC is not only involved in negotiations for the recognition of
the Armenian Genocide on a social-scientific level (which is considered
normal), but also it is getting ready to “constitute” the demands for
return of lands from Turkey. It is understandable that this has to do
with the demands of the Republic of Armenia. What is unclear is why Ara
Abrahamyan is wording his speech. By doing that, he is not only not
representing Armenia’s authorities, but he is not being considered a
citizen of the Republic of Armenia. In that case, demanding return of
lands has to do with the foreign policy of the Republic of Armenia and
Armenia’s authorities are the ones competent in doing that. Of course,
we can consider the statements made by Ara Abrahamyan as the point of
views of Russian authorities. Russia, as everyone knows, has always
been orientated towards keeping Armenia-Turkey relations in a state of
tension. However, what’s strange is to see a citizen of another country
demand the neighboring country on behalf of Armenia and the authorities
not to do anything about it.