“The armed coup attempt in Turkey can have no impact on Armenia, although the impact will not be seen directly because of the absence of Armenia’s economic and political ties with Turkey, it will be observed in a mediated way in its relations with other countries,” – says Gevorg Melkonyan, historian and Director of the “East” Scientific Research Center. In an interview with Aravot.am, he singled out two scenarios for the future development of the events. By the first scenario, Turkey headed by Erdoğan will focus on the domestic problems and will ease its active policy in the region also in the part of Artsakh and Syria conflict. “It will allow us and the people of Syria to feel the Turkish policy on us weaker.”
The second scenario, according to Gevorg Melkonyan, is more dangerous and likely, “Erdoğan will smartly direct Turkey’s domestic tension in the region, in other words, the domestic rebellion will turn into an external aggression in Syria and Artsakh, which will lead to Azerbaijan’s activation for Artsakh. We witnessed this in the last 2-3 years. Since January 2014-2015, the active hostilities by Azerbaijan were reported until April. This year, the April war was also due to the Turkish factor. Azerbaijan is a “distracting factor” for Turkey. Our task is to be well prepared for the second scenario.” Melkonyan ask a question, “Who kept Erdoğan’s power? “The masses having nationalistic sentiments. This is an unprecedented considered phenomenon in the history of Turkey. If you look at the history, people tried not to interfere in the great part of the military coups of this country, while in this case, the great part of the population went out into the street. In Turkish “Facebook” and “Twitter”, mainly nationalist politicians were calling for people to come out to the square against the soldiers. Erdoğan was saved by the forces having extremist Islamic ideology and nationalistic sentiments. Naturally, the forces that saved Erdoğan from the coup should receive a greater share of power. Let us see what the nationalist forces turned Syria into. Therefore, this is very dangerous for us, as the Islamist-nationalist forces will become stronger in Turkey and will possess greater leverages.”
Gevorg Melkonyan noted that as the history shows, the arrows of growing nationalist sentiments in Turkey are always directed against the Armenian people, “Therefore, there is a risk. Opportune, the records of the nationalists read that those who participate in the coup, they are servicing Armenians, Greeks and Jews.” Our interlocutor also stated that many people in Armenia are encouraged by the Turkish military coup attempt but in fact, the reason for being concerned is obvious.
Luiza SUKIASYAN
