23 May 2009, 18:00
First President of Armenia wrote a book on Armenian-Turkish relations
The book named "Armenian-Turkish Relations" by Levon Ter-Petrosyan, first President of Armenia and leader of the Armenian National Congress, has come off the press. It deals with Mr Ter-Petrosyan's approaches to Armenian-Turkish relations, presented in his presentations, interviews and publications in 1989-2009.
The ex-President of Armenia believes that while fixing its relations with Armenia, Turkey should not link this process with a third party, namely, with Azerbaijan, and particularly, with the Karabakh problem. Also, Armenia should not put the issue of Armenians' genocide into the foreign policy agenda, since it immediately makes the chances of settling the Armenian-Turkish relations futureless, thinks the book author.
Aram Sarkisyan, a scientist and publicist, has noted in his comments on the approaches stated in Ter-Petrosyan's book that the foreign policy of Robert Kocharyan, in which the demand of international recognition of the genocide was a cornerstone, brought the second President to a deadlock.
"As to Serzh Sargsyan, the third President, he has rushed into another extremity: instead of opening the Armenian-Turkish border, he agreed to set up a joint commission of scientists for studying the events of the start of last century in the Ottoman Turkey," Mr Sarkisyan has noted.
In the expert's opinion, in the time of Ter-Petrosyan the issue of establishing relations with Turkey without any preconditions had absolutely other sounding than today.
Author: Lylyt Ovanisyan Source: CK correspondents
