ATHENS AND YEREVAN TRYING TO COUNTERBALANCE TURKEY AND AZERBAIJAN

A major diplomatic event has occurred in Armenia - Greek President Karolos Papoulias led a Greek delegation on an official visit to Armenia. The Greek leader met Armenian President Robert Kocharyan, parliamentary speaker Tigran Torosyan and Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisyan, the Yerevan media report. The press, including the Armenian media, are keeping a determined silence about any agreements reached during the visit. However, remarks to camera by the high-ranking Greek visitors give a fair amount of food for thought.

The genuflections and declarations of friendship are the immutable protocol of any visit, even if relations are in fact far from brilliant. Tigran Torosyan's comments fit the protocol framework: he said that Armenia and Greece are united by a history of many years of friendship that not only includes a shared civilization but also has excellent prospects for cooperation, that the governments and parliaments of both countries work well together and that he confirms the invitation to the speaker of the Greek parliament to visit Armenia.

The Greek president also clarified what Greece means by "many years of friendship" and a "shared civilization": "Historical ties link the two states and history includes events that neither people can forget. It is this that always reminds us of human rights and respect for national dignity." He did not stop at this, but went on to say that the Greek and Armenian peoples are fighting for questions of national and personal rights to be resolved within the framework of international law. "Nevertheless, there are forces that have not learnt the lessons of the past and are repeating the same fateful mistakes," Karolas Paulinas said. "Our freedom-loving peoples cannot bear either closed borders or blockades or a 40,000-strong army in Cyprus, which is an EU member." He went on to say that this is why Armenia and Greece are fighting for democratic freedoms and the establishment of a peace that respects human rights and where there is justice. Tigran Torosyan, who has always restrained himself in the presence of foreign guests, quickly realized that he was amongst friends and did not hold back. And this required a genuflection in reply. He found a point of contact, angrily turning on forces that are trying to compare Cyprus with Nagornyy Karabakh. "But there is one feature in common - the desire of two peoples to live freely on this land. The problem must be discussed from the point of view of protecting human rights and resolved in this spirit. The right of a people to live freely and determine their own fate is the basis of all international documents. But not everyone understands this and learns the lessons of history. Both Cyprus and Nagornyy Karabakh will achieve success in their striving for freedom on the basis of human rights," Torosyan said with confidence. 

The meeting between the Greek president and Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisyan, Armenia's former defence minister and a participant in the Xocali genocide, followed the same script. It all began as it does in the very best houses: Sarkisyan pledged that "the government of Armenia is ready as part of its own prerogatives to help the implementation of all agreements reached at the meeting between the Armenian and Greek presidents and also to help to strengthen ties between the two friendly peoples." Remembering his past as defence minister and how well cooperation developed then with "interested structures" in Greece, he said: "Expanding our cooperation is very important at a time when Armenia is implementing an Individual Partnership Plan with NATO (IPAP). Greece's assistance and experience in this regard is very beneficial for Armenia."

However, Karolos Papoulias had the sense not to outdo the former "field commander". The best he could come up with was to comment that if a neighbour like Turkey that is always creating problems were to change and be guided by European values, then Armenia and Greece would not be obliged to spend a large amount of their GDP on security instead of social and economic problems. He basically acknowledged that Greece is arming itself against Turkey, which is a fellow NATO member. This means that under Article Five of the Washington treaty in the event of aggression against Turkey, Greece, like other NATO members, is obliged to give military support.

The apotheosis came during the visit to the memorial to the victims of the so-called "Armenian genocide". The Greek president wrote in the memorial book, "'The Armenian genocide' (the inverted commas are ours - Ed.) is a black page in the history of humanity and those who carried it out should recognize this evil, take responsibility and ask forgiveness for what they have done." The events which Karolos Papoulias described as "genocide" happened 92 years ago. Those whom Armenian circles declared to be its organizers were killed by Armenian terrorists in the 1920s. Presumably it is contemporary Turkey that has to repent and take responsibility on the principle of "ethic responsibility".

Many analysts remark that relations between Armenia and Greece have always played a special role for Yerevan. On the one hand disappointment is growing here at the results of partnership with Russia, especially the economic results. For understandable reasons they prefer not to remember in Moscow and Yerevan that the "territorial gains" in Karabakh were the result of active military support from Russia. The economic results have been far more modest than in pro-Western Azerbaijan and Georgia. On the other hand, against the backdrop of hopelessly spoilt relations with Turkey, the West's main outpost in the region, Armenia desperately needed a backdoor into relations with the West. Greece was chosen for this role, as its leaders are ready to engage in any enterprise that will spite Turkey. In the late 1990s Armenia was seriously considering extending the Iran-Armenia pipeline to Greece. Then the hot topic became a regional troika of Greece, Armenia and Iran. They tried to include Georgia and to supplement this vague regional alliance with military cooperation. However, things did not go beyond the planning stage. In other words, Greece continued to live with the realities of the First World War.

Analysts recall the crisis, provoked by Athens, on the island of Kardak, when Greece and Turkey were almost on the verge of outright war. The dispute over the islands and the coastal shelf of the Aegean Sea is still not settled - if the territorial waters are delimited as Greece is demanding, then the border will almost run along the edge of Anatolia's beaches. Finally, Greece accuses Turkey of the "genocide of the Pontic Greeks" and is almost openly claiming its Black Sea as well as Mediterranean coast. It is hardly a coincidence that the Kurdistan Workers' Party leader, Abdullah Ocalan, hid in Greek embassies across the world. 

It is clear from the above that an alliance between Greece and Armenia is far more dangerous for the region than may appear at first sight, primarily because it is a question not of economic or regional cooperation but of trying to create a counterbalance to Turkey and Azerbaijan. By definition this creates the danger of the "integration of conflicts" when tension in Karabakh will soar at the same time as tension increases between Greece and Turkey.