Historian and diplomat Zhirayr Liparityan was in the National Assembly on December 14th. It turned out that he was invited to the parliament by the chair of the NA Foreign Relations Committee, Eduard Aghajanyan. Official Turkey has stated that “reciprocal special representatives will be appointed with Armenia.”
The Armenian side also announced that it is ready to appoint a special envoy for dialogue with Turkey. Aravot asked Aghajanyan if the negotiator and special representative from the Armenian side was Liparityan, which he assured was not the case. Journalists inquired about how former Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan once told reporters: “What negotiations can take place with Turkey when Erdogan simply threw the Armenian-Turkish protocols out his window?”
Journalists also asked about what has changed when Turkey sends envoys. Aghajanyan said that this is Zohrab Mnatsakanyan’s personal point of view. “Armenia’s position in the context of relations with Turkey has always been that we are ready to start relations without any preconditions.”
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Saying relations without preconditions, will we give up the Armenian issue, the Artsakh issue? Aghajanyan answered that the Armenian side will not give up anything. “It is about starting diplomatic relations between Armenia and Turkey. This does not mean that Armenia is giving up its key and state interests. On the contrary, we are convinced that it is in the state interests of Armenia to establish diplomatic relations with Turkey for various reasons.”
In response to our question about how the opposition says if your neighbor kills you and tries to take your house, will you be friendly with such a neighbor and how ready are we for those relations with Turkey now, Aghajanyan answered. “The pain is that our ARF partners imagine the political process in such a primitive way. Perhaps this is the best example of the weakness of the foreign policy discourse in the recent history of Armenia. Armenia has a specific geographical location, it has neighbors that it can not avoid, as well as our neighboring countries can not avoid our presence in the region. Therefore, there is simply no alternative but to establish good neighborly relations with these neighbors.”
Eduard Aghajanyan stated that they are ready for this process, which is in Armenia’s interests, to become a reality. In response to the question of what price we will pay for it, Aghajanyan answered that there is no price.
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
