If not by Turkey and Armenia, the protocols could be signed by any other country

PanARMENIAN.Net - It so happened that Armenia is geographically doomed to live with a sworn "friend". There is no other choice. But instead of trying to somehow neutralize the present and future challenges, we find comfort in illusions like: Ankara does not want to remain hostage to Baku any longer; Ankara makes pro-Azerbaijani statements for internal use, etc. Perhaps it is in fact so, but the logic of the recent developments in the region shows quite the opposite, namely: all the official statements made by Turkish high-ranking government officials are aimed precisely at Yerevan to quiet down the Armenians, and then strike a blow, which may not be so bloody as in 1915 but will be as merciless as that one. It was on the eve of April 24, 1915 that the Young Turks assured the Armenian MPs that they and the whole nation were not in danger. And the Armenians believed... Will we believe them now too and find ourselves in a similar situation, which we'll not be able to control? For some reason Armenia does not attach much importance to the statements of the Senators and U.S. Congressmen, who speak of the inadmissibility of establishing a joint commission. But Sen. Robert Menendez and Adam Schiff very well know what they say.

Last time we spoke of the negative impact the ill-fated clause on the "establishment of a historical commission" had on the western media. But the situation is much more serious. Endangered is the activity of the Armenian lobby, which, according to most of the analysts in Washington, is surpassed in strength and influence only by the Israeli and Indian lobbies. In the article "Diplomacy, Inc.", published in the magazine Foreign Affairs, Senior Fellow at the World Security Institute John Newhouse in particular writes: "The Armenian lobby is built on a strong domestic ethnic base in the United States and is committed to having Turkey publicly condemned for genocide, relating to the slaughter of Armenians that occurred in 1915. Intense lobbying for a congressional resolution accusing Turkey of genocide began in the 1980s and has since become a perennial question. Most years, the White House and the State Department support the principle behind such a resolution but ultimately conclude that adoption of a resolution of that kind against the Turks would be harmful to U.S. interests. Passing the resolution could have meant the end of efforts to build a reliable and productive U.S.-Turkish relationship. And it could have strengthened Turkey's incentive to hedge against its weakening position in the West and the rising instability in western Asia by initiating a nuclear weapons program. In early 2009, however, the genocide resolution prospects rose sharply. As reported in the Financial Times, the public denunciation by the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of Israel's Gaza offensive last January, angered many of the Jewish American and pro-Israel groups that had supported Turkey behind the scenes during the debate over the genocide resolution in 2007.

The Armenian government spends virtually nothing on lobbying services in Washington, because it does not need to: the Armenian community in the United States, concentrated in California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and the New York area, promotes Armenian causes through financial contributions and its influence on Capitol Hill. The Armenian lobby in the United States is surpassed in strength and influence only by the Israeli lobby and the Indian lobby.

The Turkish government, on the other hand, measures the success of its heavy spending on lobbying in Washington by Congress' unwillingness, thus far, to adopt a resolution on the Armenian Genocide. In Washington, the executive branch has traditionally supported Turkey as a bulwark of NATO, with the core of the U.S.-Turkish relationship based on military assistance. Turkey is also a major procurer of U.S. military hardware, which has led Lockheed Martin and other major arms suppliers to spend a lot of money supporting the Turkish Government."

This long citation once again confirms the idea that any power, be it the United States, Russia or the EU countries, does not want to have a headache in the form of Armenia, which, alas, over the past 200 years has not realized that she is fed exclusively by promises. However, it is quite clear that we cannot pretend to more. We ourselves have developed this opinion about our nation and it cannot be changed overnight.

The signing of such protocols in Zurich accurately fits the model of the Armenian behavior. It is incomprehensible why the lance is broken, because we already experienced this in 1920, 1923, and earlier in 1861 in Berlin. Perhaps, the wave of "public anger" was not so strong then, because of the absence of central authority, but the essence is the same - nothing changes. The question is whether Armenia is ready to appear in the eyes of the world community as a nation, doubting the slaughter of half a million of her countrymen in the Ottoman Empire in 1915...