They give artificial respiration to the protocols

The Armenian organizers of the joint meetings with Turks feel the danger that one will try to communicate their initiatives in another way.

“We could not use the Genocide word in the past and now we freely speak of that, it is not a taboo any more”, said one of the participants of the “Armenia-Turkey – politics and media discussions” forum held in the island of Heybeliada. We do not mention his name, because the forum is held with the Chatham House Rule, i.e. the participants are free to use the information they get, without mentioning the orators. However, we chose another way of reporting, inviting to an interview the authors of the significant remarks voiced during the forum.
For the start, we asked director of informational and political programs of the “Yerkir Media” TV Channel Gegham Manukyan to go into details on his fear expressed during the forum that with such discussions they pretend that “the football diplomacy” process goes on. “If a year ago, there were less people who spoke of the death of the protocols at the meetings in such formats, now they affirm that fact more loudly and without any embarrassment”, said Gegham Manukyan in the first place. “But there is an anxiety that very often there are social initiatives, meetings in different formats, the real goal of which seems to be giving artificial respiration to the protocols or erect a façade in order that both the international community and the societies of both countries do not consider that those protocols should eventually be buried. And as a result of such initiatives, no real social dialogue and uncovering and solution of the problems takes place between the two peoples.”
Let us mention that this forum has 4 organizers – the American USAID, the Turkish “Global Political Trends Center” and Armenian “Eurasia Partnership” foundation and the Yerevan Press Club. The latter two are those of the 4 organizations that stated after the ratification process of the protocols was frozen that they will appear with joint initiatives in order to improve the Armenian-Turkish relations that they have been continuing so far.
At our request, head of the YPC Boris Navasardyan, responding to the fears that such discussions try to erect a façade that “the football diplomacy” is still alive, said, “The fear really has its grounds. And starting this project, we have always been against the establishment and development of connections between the cultural and other organizations instead of the connections between the states. Those can never be instead of each other. However, I think that both should be; we just have to distinguish where and about what we speak. And now, when there are little hopes that the Armenian-Turkish relations settlement process will have a new start or development in the short run, I think that the dialogue between the civil societies must develop. However, we must always emphasize that it is a dialogue between the civil societies and not a process that means a normalization of the relations between the states.”
The response of director of the “Eurasia Partnership” foundation Gevorg Ter-Gabrielyan to the same question was similar, “We know that danger quite well, since we have continuously been working in the field of such conflict situations. And we do everything to decrease that danger, e.g., we ask our Turkish colleagues for guarantees that they will not give rise to commentaries that this is the replacement of the state dialogue. On the other hand, it is principally wrong to prohibit a civil society from having such meetings, since it is freer and is ahead of the government. We find out so much information during these discussions and provide the representatives of our governments with it, explain what is going on, that there can be nothing, but benefit. Certainly, everything can be speculated on and be wrongly commented on. If such things take place, we are ready to intervene and clarify; I hope that our Turkish colleagues can do the same thing too. However, the main issue is that our participants who are young and older significant figures jointly discuss important issues and prepare the idea map of the next round of the regional peace. It is different matter, what the state will choose afterwards and how it will do.”