Former RA Foreign Minister and leader of the Heritage party Raffi Hovannisian thinks that in order to reach a peace agreement with Azerbaijan, the Artsakh issue must be resolved. “A complete settlement and peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan cannot be reached without a complete solution to the Artsakh issue. The territorial integrity of the Republic of Artsakh has been violated, and the status has not been resolved, so we can not have a complete peace agreement. It is possible to take steps without preconditions, to negotiate, but to hope for an era of peace is an illusion and will lead us to war rather than peace,” Raffi Hovannisian told reporters in Yerablur on January 28.
According to him, the current government with its rhetoric seems to reflect the slowdown in the work of the OSCE Minsk Group․ “I hope the co-chairs are ready to restore their function, but Armenia itself must want it. The post-war situation is material for the approaches of the region and the government, but it is not an excuse for the government to start sharing the opponent’s theses. It is unprecedented. Our thirty years of work meets not with the Turkish-Azerbaijani opposition, but with the expressions of the Armenian government. This is unprecedented and unbelievable. I was part of the opposition during the three governments.
Former RA Foreign Minister and leader of the Heritage party Raffi Hovannisian
Those authorities were wrong, but there was no way for an official, instead of correcting the real or apparent mistakes of the previous ones, to accept the ‘de facto’ situation and repeat the false, illegal theses of the opponent who committed the genocide. We have been fighting for years. They are sitting on chairs and presenting the theses justifying our enemy’s criminal actions against the thirty years of struggle of the people. During the administrations of all the Armenian authorities, the state policy has been that Armenia was ready to establish diplomatic relations with Turkey without preconditions, that is, to establish diplomatic relations and work to resolve dividing issues. There are many divisive issues – recognition of the genocide, elimination of the consequences of statelessness, etc.,” he said, referring to the Armenian-Turkish dialogue. “Therefore, it is not right to say that the settlement must be without preconditions.
Besides, if relations and dialogue are to be based on the recently expressed public opinions of the Prime Minister, then I think that the dialogue will go to a deadlock. It does not reflect the national interest, the real-state policy, the policy without preconditions. If it is a personal point of view, it is something. But if it really reflects state policy and national interest, then this process will bring a national-state deadlock for Armenia,” Raffi Hovannisian said. According to him, there is already a roadmap in the Turkish diplomatic vocabulary and there are “corridors” related to the Armenian-Azerbaijani relations.
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Therefore, Armenia can outline its roadmap and raise issues, such as genocide recognition, genocide education programs, and the restoration of historical and cultural monuments. “But one thing is clear: what we have heard recently from the incumbent Prime Minister does not represent the national-state interest of the Republic of Armenia. If we go to negotiations with that, it does not represent the RA state policy without preconditions.” Hovhannisian also referred to Nikol Pashinyan’s assertion that Armenia has never pursued the policy of the Armenian Cause in the issue of international recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
“It is a deliberate or very confusing mess of terms. Now no one is talking about the Armenian Cause, but we are talking about the Armenian Genocide, about the international recognition of that term. The genocide concerns the Republic of Armenia, the Diaspora, the citizens, the whole Armenian people. It is another matter that no government and authority of the Republic of Armenia has so far presented a territorial claim to any state. The Artsakh issue was a matter of national self-determination.
The issue of the Genocide is the issue of all Armenians, Armenia, and the Diaspora. It is wrong to include the term Armenian Cause in the political debate and to avoid the issue. The Republic of Armenia has always stood for historical justice. Either we enter into diplomatic relations with Turkey without preconditions, or if Turkey wants direct-indirect preconditions, we must also set them. If the Prime Minister wants to accept Turkey’s preconditions, it changes the balance. The government must report to the people that it accepts those preconditions and does not speak as an equal, and the people must make a decision,” said Raffi Hovannisian.
Luiza Sukiasyan
