All political forces in Armenia, including the elite, are ready for the improvement of relations between Armenia and Turkey, said an Armenian expert as a seminar on Turkish-Armenian dialogue got under way.
"Issues related to the borders, genocide and Nagorno-Karabakh are not real obstacles to opening the border between Armenia and Turkey. We can sign an agreement without making any references to Ottoman Turkey or Bolshevik Russia. The Armenian elite do not oppose the process," said Alexander Iskandaryan, who is the director of the Caucasus Institute, where a workshop titled "Turkey-Armenia Dialogue Series: Breaking the Vicious Cycle" started yesterday with the cooperation of the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV).
Referring to the ultranationalist opposition in Turkey to Turkish-Armenian dialogue, Iskandaryan said the situation in Turkey is more complicated than in Armenia. "But the issue now is part of Turkish internal discussion. There are no third parties involved like Washington or Brussels but a direct dialogue between Ankara and Yerevan. I've traveled to Istanbul and Ankara so many times. This would be impossible seven years ago," he stated.
In reference to Turkey's decision to close its border and sever its ties with Armenia in 1993 to protest Armenia's occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan, he said the Nagorno-Karabakh problem is not a problem between Yerevan and Ankara. Aybars Gorgulu from TESEV highlighted the fact that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has been the biggest challenge facing Turkish-Armenian relations because Turkey has made it a precondition for the normalization of relations.
He also added that the joint declaration signed recently by Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Moscow in the presence of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was an important step to demonstrate their desire for a peaceful resolution to the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh. "The catch here is the change in Russia's position regarding this intricate conflict. Russia's strategy to freeze the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has apparently changed after the conflict with Georgia," Gorgulu said.
Iskandaryan said the issue of genocide exists in Turkish and Armenian mentalities, but that it should not exist in diplomatic relations. He noted the Armenian Foreign Ministry's stance on the issue that resolutions passed in other countries' parliaments supporting Armenian claims of genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Empire during World War I will not help dialogue between the two countries.
"The Armenian diaspora protects its own interests. This is related to their national identity. It's impossible to stop that in Yerevan. Secondly, they are citizens of other countries, French, American, etc. We are talking about relations between Ankara and Yerevan," he added. Meanwhile, the speakers reminded the audience at the beginning of the seminar that TESEV Director Mensur Akgun and former Ambassador Yalim Eralp, who were supposed to take part at the workshop, had to stay in Turkey because they learned at the airport in ?stanbul that Armenian authorities would not allow people who hold the "green passports" issued to public servants to enter Armenia without a prior visa application.
Akgun and Eralp told Today's Zaman on Wednesday that they had been to Armenia before with same passports. TESEV officials weighed the situation and decided that the rest of the delegation, who carry ordinary passports, should go to Yerevan for the conference, which was organized months ago as a contribution to the civil society dialogue between the two countries.
Today's Zaman learned from the Armenian Foreign Ministry in Yerevan that there was a change in the law one year ago about the rules regarding all foreigners visiting Armenia. According to the new law, people carrying ordinary passports can be issued visas at the airport. But citizens of any other country carrying special passports should obtain visas from the Foreign Ministry prior to their visit.
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