Turkey will have to act more actively on the “Armenian question”: Movses Ghazaryan

Political scientist Movses Ghazaryan commented to Alpha News on the Israeli government’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide and analyzed the reasons behind this decision.

“Israel’s recognition of the 1915 Genocide of the Armenian people in Ottoman Turkey, in Western Armenia, came about largely due to two factors. The first factor is the deterioration of relations with Ankara and, so to speak, the weakening of the Turkish-Israeli ties. Turkey is displaying increasing ambition and does not want to be a weaker, more subordinate country. The second aspect is that Israel’s military-political leadership and state strategists are coming to understand that they need instruments of leverage with respect to Turkey. It’s worth noting that, in terms of international law, Turkey is in a fairly vulnerable position. A number of international treaties do not fully fix its territorial and state integrity, and the subject of the Genocide of the Armenian people, as well as the Genocide of the Kurdish and Assyrian peoples, is something that could become one of the instruments for reactivating this international political and legal discussion. And, of course, a third point should be added: this will inevitably have certain consequences for Armenia as well. Right now we’re seeing an attempt at Armenia’s relatively soft entry into the Western community in the format of a junior partner with not very broad rights and opportunities. However, one should not rule out that the trend Israel is setting in motion, not alone, but, for example, together with Greece and Cyprus, and Greece possibly together with France, could lead to the formation of a certain alliance against Turkey. We may see a reactivation of anti-Turkish narratives within the Western community aimed at containing Turkey, creating conditions for it to be more manageable in international politics and in matters concerning the interests of Israel, France, Greece, and Cyprus. We may perhaps see an attempt to form this alliance more actively, including in the direction of the South Caucasus,” the expert believes.

In the view of Alpha News’s interlocutor, Israel’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide once again brings the “Armenian question” back into focus.

“There’s one fairly complex detail here: Armenia’s joining such an alliance is rather problematic in the near term, if only because Armenia is not yet a country of the Western community. And, of course, this alliance is not viable without a link to Georgia, which would ensure unified communication with these players. It should also be noted that there will be certain consequences for Armenia from Turkey’s side as well, because the reactivation of the subject of the 1915 Genocide of the Armenian people places before Ankara and Turkish strategists the task of a more forced, so to speak, ‘reconciliation’ between the Armenian and Turkish peoples. In other words, Turkey will have to work and act more actively in the direction of what has been called in Turkey the ‘Armenian question,'” Ghazaryan concluded.