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.