Hundreds of Armenians in Beirut rallied with posters saying: “Armenian history is not for sale”, “Mr. President, reclaim our lands”, “Diaspora is the consequence of the Genocide” as a sign of protest against the protocols.
ArmeniaNow reporter
Published: 07 October, 2009
As President Serzh Sargsyan nears completion of his week-long “Pan-Armenian Tour”, headlines have center on reactions to the president, more than whether his discussions have been revealing.
Main Armenian political forces both in Armenia and Diaspora accuse Sargsyan of betraying national interests, meanwhile the president time and again assures the public the national interests goes in line with his foreign policy.
In France, United States and Lebanon (concluding in Russia) Sargsyan repeatedly has told concerned Diaspora that “the Homeland cannot make a step that would not be driven by the whole nation’s interests.”
The president has assured Diaspora that the signing of the protocols, as well as establishing relations with Turkey will not cast doubt on the fact that the Ottoman Turkey committed the Armenian Genocide. “I undoubtedly insist that there is nothing like that,” the president said.
Sargsyan also emphasized that “the fact of the Armenian Genocide needs no proof.”
“The Turkish authorities will have to, sooner or later, take into consideration the fact of 1.5 million innocent victims, the pain of a whole expatriated nation’s generations, and the genocide. The only problem that we can discuss is how to help Turkish people to be more impartial concerning the issue of looking through the pages of their own history; to be more precise – how to get rid of the Genocide consequences,” the president said.
Sargsyan also refuted the rumors that within the framework of the Armenian-Turkish relations’ regulation there is a pressure concerning the Nagorno-Karabakh issue.
“The initialed protocols have no connection with the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. It is obvious that that there is not even a hint about Nagorno-Karabakh. Our position is clear: the settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is not and cannot be in the realm of the Armenian-Turkish relations.”
The president also considered the concerns over economic expansion to be baseless, stressing that the State has enough tools and mechanisms (including legislative) to settle problems and challenges, which might appear.
At the same time, Sargsyan stressed that, in fact, it is impossible to entirely calculate all possible challenges and risks for all unpredictable scenarios.