According to Abraham Gasparyan, head of “Genesis Armenia” think tank, we made our biggest mistake by refusing the December 1, 1989 decision to reunify Artsakh with Armenia and transferring the issue of Artsakh to the field of the right to self-determination, which, in turn, gave rise to several complications. At the discussion organized by the “Voskanapat” center, referring to the current realities, the speaker said that, in his opinion, the most crucial issue in the post-war period was the inventory of Armenian resources. He doesn’t accept comparisons like “we didn’t have anything in 1988 either” because the worlds of that period and today are pretty different and guided by a completely different logic.
Abraham Gasparyan considers the most important thing for us is that the enemy has ideological concentration, but we don’t. “Today, Armenia does not have any unified approach to Artsakh, Syunik, Gegharkunik, or any unified understanding of the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia.”
The fact that the government today openly declares that some territories belonged to Azerbaijan, we used them during this period, and now we must return them, speaks of “ideological collapse” and proves that during the past 30 years, we have not been able to form principles about the existence or belonging of territories.
According to his assessment, there is no separate issue of Artsakh. The Armenian-Turkish problem has existed in this region for a thousand years, and after a thousand years, we face the problem of Armenian existence. In this situation, the speaker considers ideological and institutional consolidation the first precondition for keeping Artsakh Armenian. Accordingly, referring to the internal political disputes that took place in Artsakh two days ago, the speaker expressed confidence that they will be able to assess “black-white” divisions more soberly in Artsakh. “The state administration system of Artsakh should be modernized, and the new management model should make Artsakh more competitive and more protected from the Azeri attack expected every second.
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“Yes, there will be a war, and it will happen because, whether we like it or not, we have to increase our circumspection a little and see what the neighboring countries think about all this, what predictions they have about Armenia and the Armenian reality. All regional and international indicators show that the Armenian crossroads, Syunik, will become the subject of tough negotiations and war. Do you want to understand whether there will be a war in Artsakh? Try understanding the latest results of Russian-Turkish agreements and Iranian intervention to improve Ankara-Damascus relations.”
In this context, referring to the realities that RA is no longer a factor and subject and to the statements of the RA government that we can keep the 29.8 thousand square kilometers, Abraham Gasparyan said. “You will not be able to keep that 29.8 because to start a war, two things are necessary: a resource and to mobilize that resource, a person who gives an order and takes responsibility for that order.” Recalling the history of the creation of Israel and the world’s attitude towards it, the speaker considers the problem as follows: do we want an Armenian State, or do we want to live well?
Nelly GRIGORYAN
Photo from Abraham Gasparyan’s Facebook page
