A "HISTORICAL DRUG"

Armenia is discussing another "historical sensation." The Yerkramas newspaper [based in Krasnodar, Russia] has published an article by the late Armenian diplomat Levon Eyramdzhyants. Though the article was written as far back as 2001, the authorities in Yerevan are convinced that it has not lost its relevance. Imagine: Levon Eyramdzhyants committed himself to prove that the Treaty of Moscow signed in 1921 was concluded for a period of 25 years, or so it appears, and therefore it expired in 1946. Now another Armenian publication, Lragir, writes: "This is the basic treaty that separates Armenia, and the need for its revision gains in urgency in the year of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide. Levon Eyramdzhyants maintains that this treaty and alleged secret protocols to it have been poorly studied and have not been submitted for public discussion. Meanwhile, these documents contain all the grounds for reunification of Western and Eastern Armenia."

Now, this is the case where the authors of such statements would do best if they return to reality. The answers to the questions of whether the "secret protocols" mentioned by Eyramdzhyants really exist, what was the period of validity of the Treaty of Moscow, etc. can certainly be of interest, but only if one can operate with hard facts and serious evidence rather than vague speculations and assumptions. Moreover, a number of documents came into being after 1921 and 1946, which fixed the borders of Turkey. In short, research carried out by Eyramdzhyants has no practical use.

However, the perception of this fact has its own peculiarities in the Armenian circles.

As is known, the treaties of Moscow and Kars defined the configuration of the Soviet-Turkish border, which is now "inherited" by Armenia. They also established the status and boundaries of the Naxcivan Autonomous Republic, which was also claimed by Armenia. Most importantly, it was due to these treaties that the Treaty of Sevres and the sensational "arbitral award of Woodrow Wilson," which provided for the formation of "Western Armenia" on the territory of six Eastern Anatolian vilayets ("Eastern Armenia" was being formed on the Azerbaijani lands of the Erivan Khanate), were relegated to library archives, or rather to the dustbin of history. On the eve of World War I, the Ottoman Empire was overtly called the "sick man on the Bosporus" in the European capitals, and plans were made to partition its territory without hiding the intention to "drive the Ottomans into the Vilayet of Konya." For the sake of implementation of these plans, Armenian leaders were courted in every possible way and promised the earth in general and "Western Armenia" on the Turkish lands of Eastern Anatolia in particular. Already in the midst of war, various "committees on helping Armenian refugees" began to mushroom in the capital cities of Europe, which was accompanied by the promotion of the myth of the "Armenian genocide" as part of the necessary PR campaign. At first, everything seemed to be going according to plan. The Ottoman Empire was forced to sign the humiliating Treaty of Sevres, which essentially provided for the destruction of the Turkish state as such and created prerequisites for the Armenian leaders to realise their ambitions to establish an Armenian state in foreign lands.

However, nobody anticipated at the time that a new war would soon break out in Turkey - the Turkish War of Independence, and that the army of Mustafa Kemal Pasha [Ataturk] - which was poorly equipped and armed - would begin to successfully push the interventionists out of the Entente. And then there came an awareness of a new reality which spelt the end of all hopes of Armenian politicians. It was necessary to negotiate the borders and the regime of navigation in the Bosporus with the Republic of Turkey, in fact, to carry out a diplomatic bargaining, at which time the Armenians turned from valuable allies into an annoying problem. Moscow was the first to sign a treaty on new borders. Then, in 1923, the Treaty of Sevres was replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne which fixed a very different "configuration" of Turkey's border with Soviet Russia, hence with Armenia in its composition. It was decided to simply forget about the promises generously given to Armenian leaders in the capitals of the Entente states before the war. However, this forgetfulness was only partial. Of course, no one took the time to publicly repent and acknowledge that the respected politicians, such as Lloyd George and Woodrow Wilson, plainly deceived the audience when they talked about the "massacre of Armenians" whom the "civilised world" should have saved. Neither the countless "Armenian committees" were dissolved. Quite another thing had happened - the "Armenian question" was excluded from politics. However, this situation was not to be tolerated by the Armenian circles, which are still cherishing hopes of reviving the Treaty of Sevres. Moreover, official Yerevan still refuses to recognise the treaties of Moscow and Kars, and Armenia's coat of arms still carries the image of Agri Dagi, or Mount Ararat, located in Turkey.

One cannot but notice that Eyramdzhyants's article - which, as we recall, was written in 2001 - has been retrieved against an interesting backdrop. In 2015, Armenia is going to mark the centenary of "genocide," and here it is believed that this historical date can be "converted" into real political claims to Turkey. Moreover, the beginning of the Armenia-Turkey dialogue seems to have fully persuaded Yerevan "spin doctors" that Turkey has ostensibly yielded to "international pressure," and the reconciliation will take place exclusively on Yerevan's terms. Understandably, such hopes have failed to materialise, they just could not have possibly been materialised, and because of non-constructive position of Armenia, the Armenia-Turkey dialogue has come to a standstill. Nevertheless, the fact remains that many politicians in Yerevan still seriously entertain the idea of revising the treaties of Moscow and Kars. In Yerevan, it is reminded that in 2013, the State Commission was established by the decree of the President of Armenia, which was tasked with preparing a "legal folder" for negotiations with Turkey. The commission was headed by former Prosecutor General Aghvan Hovsepyan who stated at one of the first meetings that he did not preclude a possibility of presenting a territorial claim to Turkey. In other words, in today's Armenia, "probings" into the treaties of Moscow and Kars have turned into a sort of "historical drug," with which local politicians from among the adherents of the "party of war" try to convince fellow citizens in the possibility of reviving the Treaty of Sevres.

In so doing, they should not forget, however, that a territorial claim is a political game which is a priori too dangerous to play, especially in the Armenian context, where terror was used without hesitation to "draw the attention of the world community to the Armenian tragedy." Eyramdzhyants enthusiastically wrote in his article, "in the mid-70s, a wave of terrorist actions swept across Europe, but also the United States and Canada, carried out by the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA), the purpose of which was to draw the attention of the international public to the "Armenian genocide." Mainly the official Turkish diplomatic missions and individuals were targeted. One must admit that at the time, that wave proved to be really effective as the legal proceedings in European courts over the terrorists led to wide popularisation of the"genocide" in Europe. As a minimum, this does not allow us to exclude the possibility that Armenia may once again resort to terrorist methods; and above all, because it is unlikely to be able to "substantiate" its claims to Turkey by legal means.