“All three articles that were presented as advantages by Serzh Sargsyan show that there is no progress and we have said about that many times,” Vladimir Karapetyan, a member of the foreign relations commission of the Armenian National Congress (ANC), said during a conversation with www.aravot.am, commenting on the achievements of the Armenian foreign policy mentioned in President Serzh Sargsyan’s speech at the 13th congress of the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA).
“Serzh Sargsyan, as well as Eduard Nalbandyan, constantly mentions that there is no contact between Armenia and Turkey at official level now. So, it is a result of Serzh Sargsyan’s policy that bilateral relations are at the lowest level and there is no trust, no contact between the sides,” says our interlocutor, emphasizing that there had been no such situations before. Moreover, there have always been contacts at some level, there have always been hopes, whereas today the procedure is in a complete deadlock, the attitude of both Turkey’s and Armenia’s governments that rules out any contact between Yerevan and Ankara contribute to that. Karapetyan mentions in this regard also the unprecedented anti-Armenian rally in Taksim Square of Istanbul, thinking that it is also a result of Serzh Sargsyan’s policy toward Turkey, which brought the relations to such coldness, as well as damaged the prospect of their normalization.
As for the Karabakh issue, Vladimir Karapetyan reminds Serzh Sargsyan of his pre-election program in 2008, in which it was said that during his presidency they would try to achieve a condition when the settlement will be based on principles which would make it possible for Armenia and Karabakh to have a common border. “No step has been taken in this direction, there is no progress and moreover, we talk about some corridors through several publications, showing that we have basically given that promise up,” notes Karapetyan, adding that a politician had to be responsible for his promises and it was the time today for Sargsyan to remember his promise and say what he had done in that regard. In response to the part of the president’s speech where he speaks of Karabakh’s becoming a full party, the ANC representative says, “That is said by a person that has signed three documents. I want to emphasize that both Kocharyan and Ter-Petrossian, regardless of many offers to sign documents with Aliyevs, denied them, since they thought it was necessary that the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic also signed the document. Serzh Sargsyan went against what he had said. Besides, there is a document pending now, the Madrid Principles, that was confirmed by the document adopted by the EU on February 27, which didn’t provide for any equal participation of Karabakh. There is no article in that document that will testify to the fact that Karabakh can participate as a full party at least in the future negotiations. The Madrid principles were adopted 4-5 years ago, but we are in the same condition. Nothing has been done in this regard, they have broken their promises – everything has been done by this establishment as opposed to the promises.”
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Nelly GRIGORYAN
