European Forum

Armenian opposition parties cooperate against Turkey-Armenia protocols

Two of Armenia’s leading opposition parties announced yesterday they have reached a tentative agreement to cooperate in order to campaign against the Turkish-Armenian protocol, the signing of which seems set for October 13th.

Disagreements The protocol, which envisages the normalization of diplomatic relations between Armenia and Turkey and reopening of their border, has been a bone of contention between the Armenian authorities and opposition parties Armenian Revolutionary Federation – Dashnaktutiun (ARF D) and Heritage. The latter two have increasingly expressed their concerns ever since the two countries’ leaders reached a tentative agreement on the normalisation of relations last spring. ARF and Heritage, along with some other opposition figures, claim some of the protocol’s points present a clear danger to Armenia’s national interests. The controversy mainly concerns two such points: the agreement to create a Turkish-Armenian historic panel that will look into the massacres of Armenians during the Ottoman empire – referred to by Armenians as genocide - and the recognition of the existing Turkish-Armenian border. The first point is said to make it easier for Turkey to refuse to call the events genocide and keep other countries from doing so, while the second point makes it nigh impossible for Armenia to lay any future territorial claims on formerly Armenian-populated territories in Eastern Turkey, related to said massacres.

In addition, some ambiguity still exists concerning the question of whether or not Turkey will tie the normalisation of relations to the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Turkey’s long-standing ally, Azerbaijan, in the latter’s interest. While Armenian authorities are claiming the agreement with Turkey does not have preconditions, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly made the connection. During his latest visit to Baku on September 28th, he claimed Turkey will not ‘take steps contradicting Azerbaijan’s interests’, continuing: ‘we can accelerate the process of the adoption of the agreement [with Armenia,] but that will depend on the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.’

Opposition Protests
Although neither the ARF nor Heritage have voiced specific plans concerning the announced protests against the signing of the protocol, leading member of Heritage Stepan Safarian told a news conference on Monday that the joint actions will take place both ‘inside and outside the parliament.’ ARF has demanded Foreign Minister Edward Nambaldian’s resignation, while Heritage has demanded that the matter of the protocols be put to a national referendum, and has warned President Sarkisian that should those demands not be met, it could lead to the party fighting for the President’s resignation.

This is the first time two major opposition forces – together holding 23 seats in parliament – seem to have managed to unite for a common cause. Previous attempts to unite against the authorities failed despite the urging by another major opposition movement, Armenian National Congress (HAK) lead by former President Levon Ter Petrosian. The HAK seems cautious in assessing the Turkey-Armenia protocols, as Ter Petrosian had himself chosen for a conciliatory approach during his presidency in the early 90s.

In the meantime President Sarkisian is set to start a tour of major Armenian Diaspora communities across the world in October, to explain and promote his overtures to Turkey. The task promises to be a difficult one, as many in those communities – for a large part consisting of survivors of the Ottoman massacres and their descendants – are most adamantly against the rapprochement.

Source: Radio Liberty Armenia; Source photo: Armenia Now