Turkologist Anush Hovhannisyan, a senior staff scientist at the Oriental Studies Institute, the National Academy of Sciences, presented the reasons, for which France had passed the bill banning the denial of the Genocide at Debate Club today. “Why did France take that step? We must admit that this was not the initiative of our country. Yes, we pursue the recognition, condemnation of the Genocide and other issues, but, nonetheless, this was not our initiative, it was France’s initiative and we must understand why it took place, why right now and what will be in the future. Politics is concurrence of interests, in this instance, France’s interests and our, Armenians’ political interests coincided, but we must not forget that the Armenian Issue is used as a tool yet another time. Now it is in our interest, we welcome it, we joy etc. There are some versions about why it happened. It is the politics of, as Turks call it, Merkozysm, the tandem of Merkel and Sarkozy, i.e. striking Turkey on all fronts not to allow it to enter the European Club (European Union). Another version, the competition between France and Turkey for influence in the Middle East, North Africa and the Mediterranean region countries. Then, response of the powerful forces in Europe to Turkey’s attitude, when Turkey was terribly insulted by the report of the European Union on Turkey’s minorities, a response to its ultimatum-type statements in regard to Cyprus’s presidency, when it said in the form of ultimatum, ‘If Cyprus presides, I will have nothing to do at all…’ so, the club of the Armenian Genocide was used again for lowering Turkey’s ambitions of playing a role in the region.” Mrs. Hovhannisyan referred to another issue afterwards, “Pursuing the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, we must understand one thing that there are three issues, the recognition, the condemnation and the elimination of consequences. I think that we have gone through the stage of recognition to some extent. In the sense that anywhere, where the Armenian Issue is discussed, no one denies the fact that it happened. So, the stage of recognition is overcome at the international level. This bill is already the second stage, the condemnation. Which must be followed by the third stage, the elimination of consequences that is related to legal processes. We should not fall into euphoria; we must see where we have won and where we have lost. I think that the fact that all opponents of this bill say that it is a historical debate, they call the bill memorial law, it is a result of the Turkish propaganda, but it has legal and political implication, to transfer it to the area of history – it is the result of Turkey’s purposeful policy and they want to distort the legal and political significance of the term genocide and all its consequences. I think that this is a drawback of our policy.”
She also pointed out another issue that according to her, had been overlooked by us, “Another issue is the Turkey-Azerbaijan tandem. It is February now and the campaign for representing Khojalu as genocide has started. I have found out today that a big rally will take place in Turkey in February with ‘we are all Azerbaijanis,’ ‘let’s recognize the Khojalu genocide’ slogans. We should not overlook what happens today, in order that we don’t face the fact tomorrow.”
