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Speech By FM Nalbandian At Institute Of Int'L & European Affairs

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  • Speech By FM Nalbandian At Institute Of Int'L & European Affairs

    OF ARMENIA INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AND EUROPEAN AFFAIRS

    Mnistry of Foreign Affairs
    http://www.mfa.am/en/speeches/item/2011/07/14/speech_ireland/
    www.mfa.am
    July 14 2011
    Armenia

    Speech by H.E. Mr. Edward Nalbandian, Foreign Minister of the Republic

    Mr. Chairman,
    Ladies and gentlemen,

    It is my pleasure to be in the friendly Ireland and deliver a speech
    at the esteemed Institute of International and European Affairs. It
    is not so often that we have mutual visits to Dublin and Yerevan, but
    this does not decrease the warmth and friendly feelings both Armenians
    and Irish people emanate towards one another. The Irish proverb
    "what is seldom is wonderful" (An rud is annamh is iontach) probably
    contains much truth in it, but in promoting political dialogue and
    strengthening friendship regularity of contacts and meetings is a must.

    I have a particular feeling being here because with the Irish people
    the Armenians share many similarities. We both have huge diasporas
    spread around the world. Thus, Armenians and the Irish meet one
    another on a daily basis in the USA, Canada, Argentina, Australia
    and other places.

    We share interesting similarities in belief systems, art, literature
    and architecture, despite the fact that for a very long period of
    history Ireland and Armenia represented the opposite frontiers of
    the Christian world. It is a historical fact that the cousins of
    the modern day Irish, the ancient Galatian Celts, were neighbors to
    our Armenian forefathers some 2.000 years ago. It is also a striking
    similarity of historical past that Christianity became the religion
    of the Armenians and the Irish quite early in history.

    Armenians were the first in the world to become a Christian state
    in the beginning of the 4th century, Christianity was introduced to
    Ireland in the beginning of the 5th century. Another amazing similarity
    is that the Armenians and the Celts are the two only peoples around
    the world which have richly decorated cross-stones and which are one
    of our civilisational heritages. The similarities of the cross-stones
    are simply striking. By the way, UNESCO named the Armenian cross-stone
    art as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

    The political history of Armenia and Ireland, have had some
    interesting features too. An example of them is that, one of the
    prominent Armenians of the 18th century, Joseph Emin, who was also
    a key figure in the Armenian liberation movement, for more than 30
    years was a close friend to one of the Irish national heroes and most
    eminent political thinkers, Edmund Burke and was greatly influenced
    by Burke's ideas. The fact that Irish academic institutions have been
    interested in Armenian history and culture can not go unnoticed.

    Recently Chester Beatty Library published a book "The Armenians: Art,
    Culture and Religion", which is a new assessment of the Armenian
    Collection of Chester Beatty Library. This library has one of the
    largest collections of Armenian medieval manuscripts in Europe.

    Not only the close contacts since the earliest times and the
    preservation of those ties throughout centuries, but also the
    strong civilizational links between the two nations, sympathy
    towards each other and sharing similar or very close approaches on
    many international and regional issues have made our countries as
    natural friends.

    Currently the Armenian-Irish relations could have been much more
    developed given the existing potential for developing political,
    economic, touristic, trade, and cultural relations. And together
    with my colleague, Mr. Eamon Gilmore, Minister of Foreign Affairs
    and Trade of Ireland we will try to fill in this gap.

    Armenia pursues multi-vector foreign policy. On the regional level it
    is motivated not by attempts of capitalizing on differences between
    the major powers, but by partnership and cooperation. In building
    and developing such relations with our partners we believe in the
    principles of reciprocity, trust, goodwill, mutual interests and
    respect. These values are entrenched in our strategic relations with
    Russia, in our close friendly partnership with the United States, in
    our strong relationships with the European Union and in the meaningful
    cooperation with other regions.

    Armenia-EU relations stand high in Armenia's foreign policy agenda.

    With the launch of the Eastern Partnership two years ago we have
    got increased opportunities of cooperation in all spheres of mutual
    interest. Armenia is strongly committed to making the most of those
    opportunities as we regard them not only a useful mechanism for
    the advancement of the reforms process in Armenia, but also for
    good-spirited cooperation among the partner states.

    With this being said I would like to refer to the good progress in
    negotiations on the future Association Agreement between Armenia
    and the EU, which will define our new contractual relations for the
    years ahead. In terms of boosting and deepening of economic and trade
    cooperation we expect the establishment of a Deep and Comprehensive
    Free Trade Area to be conducive to increased economic relations with
    the EU, Armenia's largest trade partner.

    The issue of visa facilitation remains of high importance for us too.

    As we speak of partnership between participating states and the EU we
    bear in mind that the primary beneficiaries of this process are the
    societies on both sides. Therefore we must provide favorable conditions
    for our citizens to exercise their right to free communication,
    interaction and exchanges. We have strong indications from Brussels
    that decision on visa facilitation talks can be issued before the
    Eastern partnership summit in Poland this September.

    I would not go into the specificities in this respect and would rather
    turn to the recent developments in the two foreign policy challenges
    that are of concern to Armenia, as well as to the whole region and
    the international community in general. They are the Nagorno-Karabakh
    peace process and the Armenian-Turkish relations.

    The history of the conflict of Nagorno-Karabakh is well known. As
    a week ago the Washington Post coined it, Karabakh was assigned,
    by Joseph Stalin, to the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. So I
    would not go back to the period of 1921, when a group of Bolsheviks
    with just one signature decided to pass the Armenian territories of
    Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhijevan to a recently created state, which
    in 1918 was named Azerbaijan. The ethnic cleansing successfully
    carried out in Nakhijevan throughout the Soviet period, failed in
    Nagorno-Karabakh. The desire of the Nagorno-Karabakhi Armenians to
    implement their right to self determination was reacted by massacres
    of Armenians in different parts of Azerbaijani. In this situation
    Armenia faced two options. Either stand by and witness the total
    extermination of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh
    and Azerbaijan or defend their right to survival. We chose the second
    option. An agreement signed in May 1994 between Nagorno-Karabakh,
    Azerbaijan and joined by Armenia ended the military phase of the
    conflict.

    The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, represented by the USA, Russia and
    France, has been the internationally mandated negotiating format for
    this conflict.

    Here I would like to underline that the fact that next year Ireland
    will assume the chairmanship of the OSCE is of essential importance
    in terms of contribution to the negotiation process within the OSCE
    Minsk group format.

    In the past there have been different approaches, proposals and
    suggestions by the Minsk Group Co-Chairs for the resolution of the
    conflict. The negotiations are currently conducted on the basis of
    the Madrid proposals that were presented to the sides in November 2007.

    And as history tends to repeat, ten years after the Key West, in 2011,
    the current Azerbaijani leadership currently also is unable to heed
    to the appeals of the international community "to take a decisive
    step towards a peaceful settlement."

    The essence of the Madrid proposals are the three principles of non
    use or threat of force, self-determination and territorial integrity,
    and 14 elements, the main six of which were presented in the statements
    of Presidents of the Co-Chair countries, Barack Obama, Dmitri Medvedev
    and Nikolas Sarkozy, in the frameworks of the G8 Summits in L'Aquila
    in 2009 and Muskoka 2010. Less than two months ago, in late May, ahead
    of the planned Kazan meeting, the Presidents of Co-Chair countries
    made another statement in Deauville, referring to their earlier
    statements, added that "the use of force created the current situation
    of confrontation and instability. Its use again would be condemned by
    the international community." The three Presidents strongly urge the
    leaders of the sides to prepare their populations for peace, not war.

    Anyone with the minimum knowledge of the political climate in the
    South Caucasus region knows well which of the sides of the conflict
    is preparing its population for war, which of the sides is repeatedly
    threatening to use force, which of the sides is preaching war, which
    of the sides is multiplying its military budget and bragging about
    it, which of the sides is propagating hatred towards the other side,
    which of the sides is blockading the other and feeding tales of
    distorted history about the other.

    In this regard there was no shortage of practical proposals which
    could ameliorate the situation. The international community, the UN
    Secretary General, OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries, and different
    OSCE Chairmanship, including the current Lithuanian, have made several
    proposals on consolidation of cease-fire and on withdrawal of snipers
    from the Line of Contact, which were all rejected by the Azerbaijani
    side, while Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh responded positively. The
    President of Armenia proposed to reach an agreement on non-use of
    force, which was supported by international community. Azerbaijan
    rejected again.

    All principles and elements proposed by the leaders of the three
    Co-Chair countries have been conceived as an integrated whole. Armenia
    welcomed this approach. While Azerbaijan rejects all the proposed
    principles but one, and all the elements, but one. Azerbaijan attempts
    to misrepresent that only one principle, the territorial integrity
    and only one element, return of territories, have priority over all
    the others.

    That is why in Almaty in July 2010 the three Co-Chairs stated that all
    the principles and elements have been conceived as wholeness and no
    principle or element can be separated from the others or can prevail
    over the others. In Astana, the US Secretary of State, on behalf of
    the other Co-Chair countries, reaffirmed this approach.

    We went to the Kazan meeting, initiated by the President Medvedev and
    supported by Presidents Obama and Sarkozy, with a positive mood and
    feeling that we could reach an agreement on the Basic Principles of
    the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. In Deauville the Co-Chair countries
    had urged the Presidents to come to an agreement in Kazan. President
    Obama in his phone conversations with the Presidents had made the
    same appeal. The President of France Sarkozy had sent messages to the
    Presidents, as well.The President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan during his
    speech in PACE in Strasbourg just before Kazan stated that it would be
    possible to expect positive results, progress in Kazan if Azerbaijan
    did not propose new amendments as was expected by the three Co-Chairs.

    Yet, the Kazan summit didn't achieve a breakthrough, because Azerbaijan
    was not ready to accept the last version of the Basic Principles
    proposed by the three Co-Chairs. The Azerbaijani side proposed ten
    changes and amendments, and that is the reason why the Kazan meeting
    did not result in a breakthrough.

    As soon as Azerbaijan gets rid of its big illusions that money
    stemming from oil revenues could become a major factor in the conflict
    resolution in favor of its interests, as soon as Azerbaijan gets rid
    of its attempts of directing oil revenues for funding a new military
    adventurism then, we can hope that progress in the peace process
    could be more visible. Azerbaijan would gain more by redirecting
    its resources and energies to peaceful discourse and at reaching a
    compromised solution.

    Concerning the Armenian-Turkish normalization process, the
    Armenian-Turkish relations were in a deadlock when the President
    of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan initiated the normalization process with
    Turkey. The Armenian initiative met a positive response by the Turkish
    President and allowed us to attempt to make an investment in a durable
    rapprochement.

    Our position was reflected in the well-known approach of normalization
    of relations without any preconditions. It was the bottom-line
    principle for starting the negotiations with Turkey. With this
    common understanding we started, conducted this process and came to
    the agreements. From the beginning of the process up until now this
    approach has been shared by the whole international community-starting
    from the Swiss mediators to the Secretary-General of the U.N, the OSCE,
    the EU, the U.S., Russia, France and many other countries.

    Unfortunately Turkey has backtracked from the reached agreements. Not
    only has it refrained from ratifying the protocols, but Ankara has
    returned to the language of preconditions that it had used before
    the beginning of the process. Turkey has attempted to link the
    Armenian-Turkish normalization process to the settlement of the
    Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, thus keeping its borders with Armenia
    closed and refusing to establish diplomatic relations with Armenia.

    Any Turkish attempts to link the normalization of its relations with
    Armenia upon its own perception of progress in the Nagorno-Karabakh
    talks, harms both processes. This is a position that countries involved
    in Armenia-Turkey normalization and Nagorno-Karabakh peace talks,
    representing the whole international community, have emphasized
    several times.

    Turkey also uses the normalization process as a smokescreen for
    baseless argument that the adoption of resolutions on the Armenian
    Genocide in various countries can damage the normalization process.

    Yet, from the beginning of the process we made clear both in our
    contacts with the Turkish partners as well as publicly that Armenia
    will never put under question the fact of the Armenian Genocide or
    the importance of its international recognition.

    The negotiations between Armenia and Turkey were finalized by the
    signature of the protocols and now the only remaining step in this
    long lasting process is the ratification and implementation of the
    Armenian-Turkish protocols without any preconditions and delays. And
    the international community expects exactly that from Turkey.

    When Secretary Clinton was in Armenia last year on the National Day
    of the USA, during the Press Conference echoing the international
    community's common stance on this issue she observed that Armenia
    passed its way, and that the ball is in Turkey's court and Turkey
    should take the steps that it promised to take.

    I would like to summarize by a quote from the great James Joyce's novel
    Ulysses, which the Armenian reader has a pleasure to read in Armenian.

    Bloom says: "Force, hatred. That's not life for men and women, insult
    and hatred. And everybody knows that it's the very opposite of that,
    that is really life."

    "What?" says Alf.

    "Love," says Bloom. "I mean the opposite of hatred."

    We, the Armenians and Irish know well what hatred can lead to and
    what love can lead to.

    I should stop here and give the floor to you for questions.

    Thank you!


    From: Baghdasarian
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