President Serzh Sargsyan sent a letter dated February 16 to the Speaker of the National Assembly Galust Sahakyan notifying about his decision to recall the Armenia-Turkey protocols. In this regard, Aravot.am talked to Director of the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences Ashot Melkonyan. “Exactly 5 years ago, during the general meeting of the Academy, I announced that these statements are harmful and they should no way be ratified. I made efforts to prove that these protocols are very harmful to us, and we need to give them up, but the circumstances turned another course and 5 years later, fortunately, we had the chance to recall these protocols at the state level, because the public approach was emphasized negative,” he said.
Mr. Melkonyan is very happy that the President recalled these Protocols from the National Assembly on the threshold of the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide. “One of the most vulnerable elements of this Protocol was that we, as a subject of international law, are inadvertently ratifying the sinister Treaty of Kars signed on October 11, 1921, and subsequent agreement signed in Moscow on March 16, with which we, in fact, give up our right to demanding. While one of the elements in these Protocols indicated that the parties recognize the factual border existing between each other, which means that we give up the demand forever, the historical right towards our country and recognize Akhuryan-Arax as a Turkish border, which is not a border from the viewpoint of the international law, but simply a barbed wire. I think that from this prospective, our policy with Turkey becomes much more principled and most importantly, dignified”.
Ami CHICHAKYAN
