The Armenian authorities’ foreign policy has repeatedly failed over recent years, Levon Zurabyan, Office Coordinator, Armenian National Congress (ANC), told journalists on October 12.

According to him, all the parties to the Armenian-Turkish process except for Armenia, benefited from it. “Turkey gained special benefits. First, it was able to challenge the fact of Armenian Genocide by proposing the formation of an Armenian-Turkish committee of historians. Secondly, it began playing a great role in the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process. The U.S. gained benefits as well: the Armenian Genocide resolution does not any more cast a shadow over the U.S.-Turkey relations,” Zurabyan said.

If the Armenian authorities made all the concessions for the border to be reopened, their efforts failed, Zurabyan said. “Nonetheless, President Serzh Sargsyan gained major benefit from the process. Over the last year and a half the Armenian-Turkish rapprochement process enabled President Sargsyan to cause the political agenda to take a different course thereby saving the ruling regime.” Zurabyan said.

Speaking of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem he said: “The issue of Nagorno-Karabakh’s participation in the negotiations is, to a certain extent, raised under our pressure. The authorities are making statements that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict cannot be settled without Stepanakert’s participation. However, their policy runs counter to their own statements.”

According to him, Armenia ignores Nagorno-Karabakh in all the issues. Armenia has made Nagorno-Karabakh an “appendage” executing all the “orders” of Yerevan. “How can the international community recognize Nagorno-Karabakh’s independence if Armenia does not do it and if Yerevan treats the Nagorno-Karabakh authorities as a district administration and even worse,” Zurabyan said. He reminded the journalists that the situation was quite different under President Levon Ter-Petrosyan.