– Mr. Grigoryan, do the obstacles in Zurich on October 10 show that the parties have radical disagreements and the process may stop at any time?
– No, I don’t think so. It is not a political category when people say that someone was smiling, the other one was sad, or they agreed to sign after a call, etc. It is clear that the process is not easy and we should not cheat each other. The emotional factors are not the most important thing. The important thing is that the documents were signed without any changes.
– But the parties failed to make announcements following signing the documents, and later the Armenian and Turkish media published the texts of those announcements and it was supposed that the Armenian party did not agree with the provision on establishing a commission of historians.
– We should not make assumptions. On the other hand, I have information that Davutoglu wanted to touch upon the conflict of Karabakh in his speech. We get different information from different sources. I believe in the facts that de-jure exist. The other assumptions may be information spread by certain parties; in a word it may be disinformation because it is a struggle of information as well. For example, it is clear that Azerbaijan will do its best to fail this process, including through the means of media and spreading information. We must be very careful to such information.
– Do you worry that the issue of opening the border may be connected with the conflict of Karabakh?
– There is no provision concerning the conflict of Karabakh in the protocols, however there are some worries about such possibility of linking this issue with the other one. For example, currently Turkey is in the process of ratifying the protocols and it is not excluded that they may try to bring the issue of Karabakh conflict on the arena and link it with the issue of developing relations. Even if the documents are ratified (I am sure they will be ratified by both Armenia and Turkey), the Turks may still try to link the two issues during the process of the implementation of the protocols. Anyway if Turkey delays the ratification for a long time trying to link this issue with the conflict of Karabakh, then Armenia should give up for sure. Furthermore, if Turkey fails to follow the provisions of the protocols after ratification, the Armenian president and the parliament can cancel the document at any time according to the Constitution.
– One of the main concerns is that Turkey may close the border shortly after opening it again. In such case Turkey will have taken the benefit as we will have recognized their borders, and the process of the Genocide international recognition will be stopped as well. If it happens we will be faced with a big problem. Is there any guarantee that the borders will not be closed shortly after opening it again?
– The main guarantee is that this process is supported by intermediates such as the US, European Union, Russia, and to some extent OSCE as well (the formal intermediate is Switzerland). These intermediates are very serious and even a strong country such as Turkey cannot play tricks with them. Do you mean that Turkey may dare to ratify the documents, open the borders and close it again in three months? If it happens the mentioned countries will press on Turkey as they have interests in the region. Do you imagine a situation when the US and EU want to open the borders and operate the gas, oil pipelines, railways, and they are almost done when someone wants to be an obstacle? They even don’t care whether it is Turkey, Armenia or Azerbaijan. In other words, the interests of these countries are so big that hardly anyone may stand against them. It was also important for Turkey that Russia found an interest in the process too, which is that the role of Georgia will be reduced in the region and they will be able to maintain communication with their armed forces in Armenia. In several days Armenian, Russian and Turkish MPs will meet in Moscow. In the past no one could imagine that the MPs of these three countries might meet with such format. There is another reason why Turkey cannot close the border after opening. Turkey is a serious country and it would not take a chance with this game if they did not have their interests in it. Turkey knows it very well that the deeper it goes into the process, the more difficult it will be for them to step back. Such ideas can be originated in countries such as Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, i.e. in transit countries, which can give up on agreements, cheat, etc. The reason is the fact that we don’t have a long experience of statehood building and we are naïve to think that it is so easy to step back and cancel an agreement. However, we are getting new experience and we will not have such problems next time any more.
– What would you say about the inner political situation of Armenia? The opposition seems to try to unite against this process but they fail.
– Certainly this issue of the relations is so important that all political powers have expressed their opinions and stance, including the core opposition. This is normal. However there are people who are calling on uniting all the political powers against the process. I don’t think it is good. The powers are uniting in totalitarian countries. In Bolsheviks’ Russia, Nazi Germany the powers really united. Everyone knows what the result was; they simply killed the other powers. I don’t think everyone should have the same opinion concerning all nuances in the Armenia-Turkey relations. Furthermore, I think it is normal that there are people with different opinions concerning the issue within the opposition as well. By the way, I think the reason why the opposition fails to unite is the fact that the protocols are not so bad. If the protocols were bad I believe all opposition people, experts and other powers against this process would join without any problems. Certainly it is clear that the ones who are against the protocols have different opinions about different nuances of the protocols.