ARMENIA IS FAILING "TURKISH EXAM"

The situation in Syria remains in the spotlight of the world community. The peace conference, which is known as Geneva II, is now scheduled for 22 January, but there is no guarantee that this date will not be reconsidered again. 

It is indicative that the Syria conflict is being actively used by Armenian lobbyists in the "information war" with Turkey. As is known, there is a very numerous and influential Armenian community in Syria. Given the current intensity of military action, this community -- even hypothetically -- could not have stayed outside the civil war raging in the country.  Moreover, many analysts who are familiar with the situation there point out that, for instance, whereas the Syrian Turkmens were subjected to cruel oppression and considered to be "unreliable", the authorities, to the contrary, favored the local Armenians, while the relations between Damascus and Yerevan were quite warm.

Currently, amid the raging civil war and given the fact that Turkey is explicitly supporting the Syrian opposition, Armenian media have offered their audience an ingenuous trick whereby the conflict in Syria is interpreted nearly as continuation of the "Armenian genocide".

Such allegations have been made by the quite well-known Robert Fisk, who wrote on the pages of the seemingly reputable British newspaper The Independent that "about a hundred years after the 'genocide' in Turkey (here and thereinafter the quotation marks cited by the edit.) Armenians allegedly continue to be subjected to massacres in Syria, although this is almost not mentioned in the press, and their shrines are being desecrated." Then, having tickled the readers' nerves by telling stories of how he personally dug out the skulls and bones of the "genocide victims" near the Khabur River, Fisk goes back to the Syrian realities. Having written that "lately the opposition groups in Syria committed an act of vandalism in an Armenian church as well as burnt down the furniture there", he goes on to the main point, saying that allegedly "hundreds of Turkish fighters, the descendants of the Turks who sought to annihilate the Armenian race in 1915, now attacked the Armenian church alongside the militants who joined al-Qa'eda." Mr. Fisk apparently does not care that the conflict in Syria is an internal civil war, not an outside invasion, and that in this situation the Armenians could not have "avoided suffering", even hypothetically.

It is noteworthy that Robert Fisk's article was circulated in the media exactly at a time talk resumed within the world community about the possibility of advancing Armenian-Turkish dialogue, especially given the fact that a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) member states, scheduled for 12 December, creates very suitable conditions for this, according to assurances from analysts in both Ankara and Yerevan. Indeed, there have been quite a few signals indicating this in the past few days. The reasons for this include the fact that the issue of the Armenian-Turkish normalisation has gained relevance again as 2015 -- the year when the 100th anniversary of the "genocide of Armenians" will be marked in the Armenian circles -- is approaching. Analysts predict that the Armenian lobby will step up its efforts in this connection, and are also getting ready for possible unpleasant surprises in Turkey. 

The first such messages began to be communicated from Ankara as early as on the eve of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's visit to Azerbaijan. The Zaman newspaper, which is close to the Turkish ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), released "leaked" information that Prime Minister Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu have asked the Swiss government for assistance in establishing new contacts with Armenia; Switzerland acted as a mediator during the first stage of the negotiations, which concluded with the signing of the notorious Zurich protocols. However, as early as then Foreign Minister Davutoglu made it crystal-clear that, indeed, Turkey would like to settle its relations with Armenia by 2015, but opening the border between the two countries is out of the question until the occupied territories of Azerbaijan are liberated. Addressing a behind-closed-door session of the parliamentary committee for foreign affairs, he stressed again Turkey's demand for Armenia to pull out of the occupied Azerbaijani territories. 

"Our demand is liberation of Karabakh. We expect progress on this issue," Davutoglu was quoted by journalists as saying. 

It would make sense to remember that Turkey's consent to negotiate with Yerevan was right from the beginning viewed by Armenia as almost like Ankara's "capitulation" to the "world public opinion" and not as an act of a peace-loving gesture

Moreover, the notion of the "world public opinion" and the demands of the Armenian lobbyists were instantly being presented as something similar. Other politicians in Yerevan seriously hoped that the statements made in support of the Armenian-Turkish dialogue were nothing but a sign allegedly indicating that European countries and the United States "remembered" their promises made to the Armenian leaders on the eve of World War I. And they surely had no doubt that along with the opening of the border, they would, at least, secure forced "recognition of the genocide" by Turkey, and if they are lucky enough, territorial "gifts" would be granted. In the worst case-scenario, they were ready to agree upon the opening of the border as a "prepayment" and, for the time being, to put off the "genocide" recognition. So, when President Serzh Sargsyan, speaking at the Vilnius summit, asked the European leaders for "assistance" with ending the "blockade", this meant only one thing: Yerevan has no intention of withdrawing its troops [from Karabakh, Armenia-occupied Azerbaijani land], but it stills hopes for border opening [with Turkey]. At the same time, they are not going give up their territorial and other claims to Turkey. In fact, under the guise of the propaganda of the ideas such as "the Armenian issue" or "overcoming the consequences of the genocide" was a euphemism for territorial claims for Turkey's Eastern Anatolia, and at times, their claims reaches territories as far as Cilicia, Adana, Ceyhan as well as the Incirlik base. 

Moreover, attempts are regularly made to take to courts their claims for the "illegally alienated Armenian property" in Turkey, and the Incirlik base has also been mentioned in this regard. Now, when impressive forces of the Armenian lobby are trying to play the "Syrian card" against Turkey again and to slightly refresh it by their "Armenian genocide" allegations, this in fact shows only one thing, which is Yerevan is still not ready for the real normalisation of its relations with Turkey.