A Historical Document Relevant Today

The Problem of Reconciliation and of Our Orientation

Armenia is a state recognized de jure by the great powers. And this recognition is the supreme international achievement of our people.

The Armenian people, which has gained its independence with the sacrifices of millions of its children, can reconcile with the great contractions in its historical territory, can renounce many and many good things, but there is one thing with which it must never reconcile with, which it must never renounce. And that thing is the destruction of Armenia as an independent state.

Let Armenia be a small, even a very small state, but be independent state.

Being small is never an obstacle to future development. Greece was small when it was created and very weak, but now it is so big that it inspires fear even in a powerful state like Italy. Serbia was small, but now it is already a respectable state. Romania was small, but now it has multiplied, multiplied its territory and power.

The most important thing is the preservation of state independence, which is the greatest guarantee of the future development of the people.

From the point of view of great states, the existence of our state has as much meaning and value as it separates Turkey from Russia. The day when Armenia loses its independence and becomes a puppet in the hands of Russia, the only strong reason that forced and forces the great European states to accept the existence of Armenia as a state will disappear.

If Armenia wants to live as a state, it must avoid being a plaything of its great northern neighbor, Russia, at all costs.

On the other hand, our centuries-old enemy, Turkey, can finally come to terms with our statehood only when we once and for all renounce the Russian orientation.

It is true that Mustafa Kemal’s Turkey, which is at war with us today, acts as an ally of Bolshevik Russia. But it does not take great political wisdom to understand that Turkish-Russian friendship is a temporary alliance between two forces that are objectively and substantially opposed to each other in their interests.

It is no secret to anyone that the current friendship between the Turks and the Russians is an artificial bond that can be severed at any moment and will inevitably be severed when one or the other side has achieved its main goal.

Russia is the historical enemy of Turkey, and this hostility has never arisen from the subjective desires of the rulers, but has been an inevitable result of the objective conditions of the existence and development of the two states and peoples.

That is why neither the Bolsheviks nor the Kemalists can change themselves, change the ideological direction of their statehood, just as England became Russia’s ally during the last European war, because that was England’s temporary interest. But that alliance did not prevent England from remaining Russia’s greatest and most dangerous enemy.

It is not by being with the Russians that the Armenian people can ensure its existence and the existence of its state. Because the presence of the Russians in Transcaucasia, under the current international conditions, cannot be permanent and it will inevitably, sooner or later end, as soon as the Russian problem is resolved.

Russia itself, through the mouth of its Bolshevik rulers, has repeatedly stated that it is ready to respect and recognize the interests of England in Transcaucasia.

The Armenian people and Armenia cannot tie their fortune with a state which, by its own admission, will withdraw from the borders of Transcaucasia if England and other great European powers are willing to reconcile with its existence.

For its salvation, Armenia has only one way – to find a common language directly with its neighbor, the Turks.

If the Armenian people wants to live and ensure its state and physical existence, then, as a matter of fact, it must have not a Russian, but a Turkish orientation.

And if the Armenian people had not had a Russian orientation during the last pan-European war, but had sided with the Turks without reservation, in all probability, it would have avoided the massacres and their situation would have been even better than that of the Georgians.

Once and for all, we must understand that it is not by relying on foreigners that we can truly achieve peace for our people, but only by relying on our own forces that we will determine our fate with our strong neighbors, with Turkey.

Any foreign intervention, especially Russian intervention, can only be detrimental to the lasting peace between the Armenian and Turkish peoples.

Because the foreigner will first muddy further the atmosphere of mutual distrust that already exists between the two centuries-old neighbors and make a firm agreement impossible. And second, the foreigner will try to make us a tool in pursuit of its own interests and goals; from the foreigner’s point of view, a sincere and genuine Armenian-Turkish reconciliation is not really desirable.

Meanwhile, the Armenian people, like the Turkish people, is in need of a genuine reconciliation.

We have been deceived enough by foreigners.

Let us place our hope only on our own strength and speak with our enemy face to face, without “benevolent” intermediaries. And what we will achieve in this way, in any case, will be something more reliable, more stable, and more hopeful than what we can obtain through the efforts of intermediaries.