Ara Papian: Kurds cannot create a state at the expense of the Republic of Armenia (video)
By attacking the Kurds in Northern Iraq and Syria, Erdogan is preparing for the new parliamentary elections and is trying to to oust the pro-Kurdish party from the parliament. “They are creating chaos. More than 1200 members of the party, supporters and activists have been imprisoned in the past 2-3 days,” Head of the Kurdish community of Armenia Knyaz Hasanov. With the start of the process, Turkey also organized the terrorist act of the Kurdish Suruç Province which claimed the lives of 34 Kurds. Later Turkey blamed the terrorist act on their sponsor Islamic State and used it as excuse to enter Syria and Iraq. “What ties can Turkey have with Syria? The Turkish government and those Islamists can now contact through one way and if Kurds decide to take that road under their control, the communication between Islamists and Kurds will be cut down,” he said. Mr Hasanov says they do not expect Armenia to support their struggle. Kurds in Armenia can only give moral support. Political analyst Ara Papian sees both positive and negative aspects for Armenia in the Turkish-Kurdish clashes. “The positive thing is that Turkey will divert its attention from the Karabakh conflict and focus on the conflict with Kurds. The bad thing is that Kurds want to seize more territories and we do not take any practical steps in this connection,” said Ara Papian, who heads the Modus Vivendi Centre. He stresses that Kurds seek to create an independent nation state of Kurdistan, but he says it cannot be done at the expense of the Republic of Armenia. “We should remind the Kurds about the territories of the Republic of Armenia,” he said. But the put forth territorial claims to Turkey and Turkey began bombarding them. Cannot the same happen to Armenia if we speak about our territorial claims? “Unfortunately, Armenia has never been a claimant,” he says. Mr Papian says nothing dangerous will happen if we demand back our lost territories It will be dangerous if we demand territories from Turkey. “If you demand that Turkey surrender the territories of Armenia … I do not think that Cyprus which demands succession of Northern Cyprus by Turkey is creating casus belli,” he said. But those are the administrative territories of Turkey. Consequently, Turkey has a legal right to attack Armenia. At the same time, the political analyst stresses that the attack on Armenia is conditioned by a number of geopolitical factors, including the influence of Russia and the US, the moderating role of NATO. “But for all the aforesaid factors, Turkey would not wait for an excuse to attack Armenia because it has that excuse: the 20 percent of “occupied territories” of Azerbaijan,” Mr Papian said in conclusion.
