Republican Party: The only humiliating thing in Armenia's history was Ter-Petrosyan's foreign policy course

 The only humiliating thing in independent Armenia's history was Ter-Petrosyan's foreign policy course, when the issue of the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide was removed from the country's foreign policy agenda. Secretary of the Republican Party of Armenia Gagik Melikyan told ArmInfo when commenting on the first president Levon Ter- Petrosyan's statement suggesting that some provisions of the Pan-Armenian Declaration on the Genocide of Armenians were humiliating.  

"What should one expect from a person who, inherently, abandoned one of the most important issues for the Armenian people - the issue of the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide - during his presidency, calling that national ideology as a false category," Melikyan said.

The first president of Armenia, leader of the Armenian National Congress Levon Ter-Petrosyan has published an article in the Chorrord Ishkhanutyun (Forth Power) newspaper, wherein it levers harsh criticism at the Pan-Armenian Declaration on the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.  Ter-Petrosyan expressed discontent at the fact that the Declaration expresses gratitude to the countries and organizations that have recognized the Armenian Genocide. 

"Such a statement is nothing but provincialism. It is humiliation to thank countries and organizations for recognizing and condemning a crime against humanity. Those countries and organizations just acted in conformity with the international legal conventions," Levon Ter-Petrosyan said.  

Ter-Petrosyan call not serious the call "upon the Republic of Turkey to recognize and condemn the Armenian Genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire, and to face its own history and memory through commemorating the victims of that heinous crime against humanity and renouncing the policy of falsification, denialsm and banalizations of this indisputable fact." "That call resembles an ultimatum rather than a call. However, the Declaration does not specify what will happen if Turkey fails to fulfill it.  An ultimatum will bring nothing. Nevertheless, I do not doubt that Turkey will recognize the Genocide of Armenians sooner or later.  However, recognition of the Genocide by Ankara is the affair of the Turkish people, not the Armenian people. His will happen not before the Armenian-Turkish reconciliation, establishment of the good-neighbored relations and confidence between our countries.  Consequently, the Armenian-Turkish relations must be normalized irrespective of the fact that Armenia calls the events of the early 20th century as Genocide, while Turkey denies it," Ter-Petrosyan said. He is sure that third countries, but not Armenia, can call upon Turkey to admit its own history, because, "first, it is humiliating, second, it does not contribute to normalization of the relations."

Further in the article, the first president of Armenia criticizes the Declaration for de-facto expressing Hay Dat's (Armenian Cause) demands [recognition and condemnation of the Genocide by Turkey, compensation, return of the descendants of the Armenian Genocide victims to their historical motherland and expansion of Armenia's borders in line with the Serves Treaty and US President Woodrow Wilson's Arbitral Award of 22 November 1920]. 

"After the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide became a priority of Yerevan's foreign policy in 1998, a decision to set up an Armenian-Turkish committee of historians to study the events of the early 20th century in Ottoman Turkey was forced upon us. Now, after we officially declared Hay Dat's demands in the Pan-Armenian Declaration on the Armenian Genocide, the consequences can be unpredictable. One thing is for sure: this will freeze for long the normalization process so necessary for Armenia's future," Ter-Petrosyan said.