Armenia`s leadership crossing redline - Ruben Melkonyan 

ArmInfo. Armenia's leadership is step-by-step crossing the redline in seeking to complete the process of normalizing the relations with Turkey, Prof. Ruben  Melkonyan of Yerevan State University told ArmInfo.  

"It is the Artsakh problem and the Armenian Genocide. It is the  collective memory of the Armenian people, who continue viewing  Western Armenia as the cradle of the Armenian ethnos. Armenia's  incumbent government is bringing all these factors into question and  seeking to convince society of a need to get rid of them as if they  were dead weight - all this with a view to establishing relations  with Turkey. In its turn, Anraka is making such steps as establishing  air communication, inviting Armenia to the Antalya forum, and so on.  The positive changes are only evidence thereof," Mr Melkonyan said.  

International recognition of the Armenian Genocide was formerly part  of Armenia's national policy.  Evidence thereof is the intention to  seek the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide in the  Ottoman Empire enshrined in the Independence Declaration. One more  all-important fact is, according to Mr Melkonyan, the Declaration  commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide and  signed by the presidents of Armenia and Artsakh as well as by  Catholicos of All Armenians Garegin II and Catholicos of the Great  House of Cilicia Aram I, leaders of a number of political parties and  diasporic organizations.  

Moreover, against the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by a  number of states, Armenian Premier Nikol Pashinyan's statements that  the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide is a task to  be accomplished by Armenian diasporic organizations, but not by the  Republic of Armenia, sound strange.  One more important aspect of the  incumbent authorities' activities, which poses a threat to Armenia,  regular statements by Armenia's premier and his inner circle that  Armenia has no territorial claims on Turkey. 

Mr Melkonyan stressed that since 1991 Armenia has never laid any  territorial claims to Turkey, which by no means indicates Armenia's  willingness to recognize the Treaty of Kars of 1921. Moreover, even  the leaders of Soviet Armenia never officially recognized it.  Armenia's leaders have rightly been regarding the Treaty of Kars as  lacking legitimacy and illegal, with no legal grounds for the cession  of Armenian territories to Turkey. 

"That is the reason why, while actually recognizing Turkey's  territorial integrity and not having territorial claims on Turkey,  Armenia would not recognize the Treaty of Kars. Therefore, Nikol  Pashinyan's latest attempts to mix the absence of territorial claims  on Turkey with recognition of the Treaty of Kars smack of barefaced  manipulation without any real grounds. Meanwhile, Turkey is demanding  that Armenia recognize the Treaty of Kars rather than its [Turkey's]  territorial integrity," Mr Melkonyan said.