By Anna Saghabalian
An American-Armenian analyst believes U.S.-Turkey relations will not suffer from the possible adoption of the genocide resolution in the U.S. Congress as he describes these relations as “already bad”.Richard Giragosian, in particular, mentions the clash of U.S. and Turkish interests in Iraq where the most reliable U.S. ally, the Kurds, are known to be a threat to Turkey. In this sense, according to him, genocide recognition is not seen as a focal issue in the relations between the two states.
“The U.S. military perception of Turkey today is that Turkey is more of a problem than part of the solution,” Giragosian said in Yerevan on Tuesday, analyzing the consequences of the possible recognition of the Armenian genocide by the United States on the Armenian-Turkish relations and U.S. foreign policies.
At the same time, Giragosian considers that Turkey’s EU membership meets Armenia’s interests, as “the closer Turkey is to European standards, the safer and more predictable it becomes for Armenia.”
“If Europe rejects Turkey, it will shift away from looking west to the European Union and will return to the Pan-Turkic eastern vision,” Giragosian says. “The other important thing is that Turkey within the European Union brings the EU borders to Armenia.”
In terms of regional developments Giragosian is worried about Armenia’s isolation, while its neighbor Azerbaijan is developing closer relations with Central Asia and Georgia is moving closer to the West, the U.S. and NATO.
According to Giragosian, it is Russia and the United States rather than Turkey that are Azerbaijan’s closest military partners today.
Under the circumstances, Giragosian is as much worried about possible “Russian betrayal”.
The analyst says the opening of the border with Turkey and the end of the blockade will have positive economic effects of competition for Armenia. But adds: “It threatens many powerful people in Armenia, those who control the monopolies on different commodities.”