V. Oskanian, “Levon Ter-Petrosyan refused the Turks”
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs Vardan Oskanian can deduce only one thing from the contents of the Armenian-Turkish two-party protocols. "I am beginning to believe that it is a coercive document. I cannot imagine an Armenian diplomat who would negotiate over such a document. I never did it during those 10 years and I do not understand how the Armenian authorities can present our nation with such a document," Vardan Oskanian told the A1+ correspondent today.
Mr. Oskanian refrained from assessing the ARF Dashnaktsutiun hunger strike, but he said he agrees that the protocols do not proceed from the interests of the Armenians and ought not to be signed. Mr. Oskanian is also concerned with the fact that there are no serious discussions about the protocols, "Even if there are any, the contents are distorted, the situation is presented under a favorable light and the authorities are supported blindly."
The former Foreign Minister thinks that today we have to set aside the political discords and realize that we are going through a fatal stage, "I am trying to do just that. As much as I want to see the opening of the Armenian-Turkish border, I cannot take the idea that we are giving in to the Turks in all the preconditions they have put forward. The Turks have virtually achieved what they intended to since 1991. At the time they put forward such degrading conditions to us. Now they have been able to achieve their aim. The document has to be re-assessed politically."
Vardan Oskanian finds it difficult to say what is the agreement between the Armenian and the Turkish sides. He does, however, think that the document is a result of bad negotiations, "Try hard as I do to imagine myself in the shoes of the negotiators, I cannot realize that the Armenian side can sign such a document."
As for the statements of ARF that in terms of Armenian-Turkish relations Serge Sargsyan is trying to do what Levon Ter-Petrosyan to trying to, Vardan Oskanian said, "I am well aware that the two demands, denial of the Armenian Genocide and the Karabakh conflict, have been included in the Protocols. In 1992, Levon Ter-Petrosyan categorically turned both of them down. Later on, we were approached with such documents again, but we kept turning them down. It's unconceivable how the authorities could have agreed to them."
