Veteran Diplomat Djerejian Regales Audience with Tales of International Intrigue at Assembly Event

When Mugar followed up with a question about falling back on core values when making a difficult decision, Djerejian related another anecdote in which his Armenian background played an important role. Djerejian served as US ambassador to Syria from 1988 to 1991 and he said this was his most challenging assignment, as the US had an adversarial relationship with Syria for many years, but needed Syrian cooperation on a variety of issues such as getting US hostages out of Beirut, the broader crisis in Lebanon, the Arab-Israeli peace process, human rights issues in Iraq, and stability in the Middle East as a whole.

Few US ambassadors had good access to Hafez al-Assad, the ruler of Syria, from the 1970s onward, but Djerejian knew that he liked Armenians because he considered them to be loyal citizens, and as an Alawite himself, he served as the protector of minority communities such as the Armenians. So when Djerejian came to present his ambassadorial credentials, he told Assad how his father escaped the Deir el-Zor death march and was given safe haven by a Syrian Arab family in Aleppo. His father learned of two Armenian girls in the harem of a Turkish captain and managed to rescue them. Djerejian said that if anyone had told his father as a young boy in 1919 that his son would one day come to Damascus as the US ambassador, he would have said this is crazy.

Assad was captivated by this story, Djerejian related, and this led to better relations. Djerejian and the State Department were eventually able to convince Assad to enter into direct negotiations with Israel, which he had refused to do for 40 years, fearing that Israel, with US support, to be too powerful. Assad participated in the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991, which broke the logjam in getting the rest of the Arab world to start negotiations with Israel.

Djerejian was also involved in getting the US hostages out of Beirut due to the Syrians’ connections with Iran, and obtaining freedom of travel for Syrian Jews. Françoise at this point quietly interjected from the audience, “joining the coalition,” and Djerejian thanked her, saying that it was not for nothing that Secretary of State James Baker called her Djerejian’s “main brain.” Getting Assad to join the Desert Storm coalition against Saddam Hussein was indeed another major accomplishment. Djerejian observed that the Bush-Baker team strategized, unlike current US foreign policy leaders, and turned the coalition into a foundation for the Madrid peace process.

Armenia and the War with Azerbaijan

Naturally, Mugar queried the senior diplomat on the current situation in Armenia after the recent war, and he retorted, “Do we have 12 hours?” before confirming that Armenia is going through one of the most critical times in its history and is very vulnerable. He said that first of all, “We as Armenians, both in Armenia and outside, should look closely at what went wrong that led Armenia to this stage and this vulnerability…And then draw the lessons from that and do everything possible to foster Armenia’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, democracy and value(s).”

Djerejian stressed that there is no question in his mind that one of the lessons learned is that Armenia must enhance its deterrence power, nationally, economically, socially and its democracy, but also its military and defense capability in order to face the strategic challenges it has with Azerbaijan and Turkey. Armenia must, he continued, “constructively draw the right lessons and then chart what I would call a strategic doctrine going forward.”

As far as current Armenian diplomacy is concerned, Djerejian said that it is trying to go on a multilateral axis. Since the military option is not a strong one, Armenians must, he said, “rely on what I call assertive diplomacy across the board.” While depending rightly so on Russian peacekeepers, it looks towards the US, European Union, Iran and others to bolster its national security.

He said the US has become much more active in the last six months on Armenia’s issues, in part with the Ukraine war leading it to see an opening for the US to complement the Russian role in security issues in Armenia. With all the meetings taking place, he said, “a lot of it is rhetorical, but behind the rhetoric there are things that are beginning to happen…that have to make Azerbaijan and Turkey think twice, that they don’t alienate the international community in being even more aggressive against Armenia.”

He stressed that “delimitation of the borders is important, and obviously before all of this a sustainable ceasefire, stopping Azerbaijan’s ingress into Armenian territory, forget about Artsakh, and secondly, determining what a peace agreement can be… I think it is going to take a great deal of skill on the part of Armenia to make this come together.”

Djerejian warned against the ossification or bureaucratization of negotiations as in the Israeli-Palestinian case, where process becomes the endgame, and declared, “I would prefer the efficacy of direct negotiations bilaterally and multilateral by Yerevan.”

Djerejian also voiced his support for Armenian negotiations with Turkey to open their common border, though he conceded that maybe people in the audience do not support this. He quoted Secretary of State James Baker who would say “You don’t make peace with your friends. You make peace with your enemies,” and concluded, “You have to talk to your enemies but on a principled basis and not give up your values and your most important positions. But you have to talk to your adversaries. That is what diplomacy is all about.”

Djerejian also responded to questions on varied topics from the audience, always in the same witty tone, before Assembly Executive Director Bryan Ardouny made his closing remarks and gifted Djerejian with a bottle of Armenian brandy as a symbol of appreciation and welcome to Boston. As Djerejian will be serving as Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative, at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs of Harvard University’s Kennedy School, hopefully he will have further opportunities to expand on his ideas and speak further at local Armenian events.