Levon Ter-Petrosyan harshly criticizes Pan-Armenian Declaration on Armenian Genocide

 First president of Armenia, leader of the Armenian National Congress Levon Ter-Petrosyan has published an article in the Chorrord Ishkhanutyun (Forth Power) newspaper, wherein it levers harsh criticism at the Pan-Armenian Declaration on the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide recently read out by President Serzh Sargsyan.  

Ter-Petrosyan is skeptical about the provisions of the Declaration suggesting that " the State Commission on the Coordination of Events Dedicated to the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, in consultation with its regional committees in the Diaspora, expresses the united will of the Armenian people." Ter-Petrosyan is outraged that the given provision is repeated twice in the document. 

"How can any organization reflect the united will of the people? No one can speak on behalf of the people. Only a nation-wide referendum can reflect the public will," he said.   According to him, the Declaration would have high international importance if inked by the presidents of the two Armenian republics and the two Armenian religious leaders.

Besides, Ter-Petrosyan is discontented at the fact that the Declaration expresses gratitude to the countries and organization that have recognized the Armenian Genocide. 
"Such a statement is nothing but provincialism. It is humiliation to thank countries and organizations for recognizing and condemning a crime against humanity. Those countries and organizations just acted in conformity with the international legal conventions," Levon Ter-Petrosyan said.  He came out also against the provision that supports those segments of Turkish civil society whose representatives nowadays dare to speak out against the official position of the authorities. "Such solidarity will just endanger the state of those people," he said.

Ter-Petrosyan call not serious the call "upon the Republic of Turkey to recognize and condemn the Armenian Genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire, and to face its own history and memory through commemorating the victims of that heinous crime against humanity and renouncing the policy of falsification, denialsm and banalizations of this indisputable fact." "That call resembles an ultimatum rather than a call. However, the Declaration does not specify what will happen if Turkey fails to fulfill it. 
An ultimatum will bring nothing. Nevertheless, I do not doubt that Turkey will recognize the Genocide of Armenians sooner or later. However, recognition of the Genocide by Ankara is the affair of the Turkish people, not the Armenian people. His will happen not before the Armenian-Turkish reconciliation, establishment of the good-neighbored relations and confidence between our countries. Consequently, the Armenian-Turkish relations must be normalized irrespective of the fact that Armenia calls the events of the early 20th century as Genocide, while Turkey denies it," Ter-Petrosyan said. He is sure that third countries, but not Armenia, can call upon Turkey to admit its own history, because, "first, it is humiliating, second, it does not contribute to normalization of the relations."
Further in the article, the first president of Armenia criticizes the Declaration for de-facto expressing Hay Dat's (Armenian Cause) demands [recognition and condemnation of the Genocide by Turkey, compensation, return of the descendants of the Armenian Genocide victims to their historical motherland and expansion of Armenia's borders in line with the Serves Treaty and US President Woodrow Wilson's Arbitral Award of 22 November 1920]. 
"After the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide became a priority of Yerevan's foreign policy in 1998, a decision to set up an Armenian-Turkish committee of historians to study the events of the early 20th century in Ottoman Turkey was forced upon us. Now, after we officially declared Hay Dat's demands in the Pan-Armenian Declaration on the Armenian Genocide, the consequences can be unpredictable. One thing is for sure: this will freeze for long the normalization process so necessary for Armenia's future," Ter-Petrosyan said.

For conclusion, he said that the Declaration is an inefficient document that must not present the issue of the Armenian Genocide on the international arena ahead of the centennial of that crime. "In the meantime, if the document were drafted on the basis of the theses of human rights, considered as a crime against humanity and underlined the need for the Armenian-Turkish reconciliation, the declaration would get a positive international assessment and have positive political effects for both Armenia and Nagorny Karabakh," Ter-Petrosyan said. 

He blamed the Commission on Coordination of the events for the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide for excess of power, violation of Armenia's Independence Declaration and Constitution by expressing Hay Dat's demand, because both the basic documents of Armenia just indicate contribution to the process of international recognition of the Armenian Genocide.