Is it still a priority?
"I still believe that there can be no progress in the Turkish-Armenian reconciliation without progress in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement," told "A1+" Armenian National Congress representative Davit Shahnazaryan.
Shahnazaryan underscored that the developments in the past weeks made the predictions of the ANC a reality. The Armenian National Congress had foreseen that the issue concerning the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is much more important for the Turks than genocide recognition and other issues when it comes to opening of borders and establishment of diplomatic relations.
Davit Shahnazaryan believes that Turkey and Azerbaijan "carried out a well-planned and diplomatic scenario".
"Turkey had to solve a tactic problem related to U.S. President Barack Obama pronouncing the word "genocide" in his annual address," says Shahnazaryan. He knows for a fact that Obama will not say the word and says that the Turks are rest assured that they have nothing to worry about anymore.
"They already got what they could only dream of a couple of years ago. This refers to the creation of a committee of historians at the governmental and presidential levels. If such a committee is formed or a document is signed, that will completely put an end to the Armenian Genocide international recognition process," says Davit Shahnazaryan. He considers this to be the wrong policies led by Armenia starting from 1998 when Armenian authorities declared that genocide recognition is a priority in Armenia's foreign policy.
"Nobody, including me, knows whether the Armenian authorities still have that goal. I think Serzh Sargsyan was obligated to state whether that is in effect or not. This is yet another error, just like the error he made when he agreed to form a committee of historians. Turkey feels that things are going just the way it planned and that is why it is bringing up the Karabakh conflict," says Shahnazaryan.
But recently Serzh Sargsyan stated a couple of times that the issue of genocide is not up for debate. In response to this, Shahnazaryan said:
"It would be right to ask Serzh Sargsyan and his administration because they must explain those statements."
Shahnazaryan believes that Armenia plays a weak role in the Turkish-Armenian reconciliation and the developments go to show that unfortunately, Armenia is not calling the shots and the issue is in Ankara, not Yerevan. In general, Shahnazaryan is of the belief that there is no need to expect advancements in Turkish-Armenian relations when Armenian authorities continue to deepen the domestic crisis and recalled that there are currently 55 political prisoners in Armenia.
