The report was discussed recently in the commission of the European Parliament on foreign affairs, human rights, defense and security. The draft of the report was significantly modified, also as a result of the activity of Armenian lobbyists. A day before the voting of the report clauses concerning the blockade and genocide were included in the report.
However, the word Genocide is not mentioned. ”The tragic experience of the past mentioned in the resolutions of the European Parliament adopted earlier”. This long and strange phrase has come to replace the word ”Genocide”. The authors of the report see the overcoming of the problems caused by the ”tragic experience of the past” in ”establishment of a dialogue between the Turkish and Armenian academic circles, NGOs and public organizations”. It is evident that the Foreign Ministry of Armenia and the Armenian lobbyist organizations have to carry out a certain amount of work so that the final text of the report to be approved at the plenary session of the European Parliament the Ankara’s policy towards Armenia is formulated more precisely.
The same with Turkey’s blockade of Armenia. The word ”blockade” was not included in the report. It only urges Turkey ”to open the borders with Armenia, establish good-neighbor relations … and to give up any action impeding the conciliation of the two countries”.
At the same time, the draft report reads that Turkey has lot of things to do before starting the negotiations about the terms of entering the EU. The document urges the European commission to make pressure over Ankara in order to oblige it to solve its problems with human rights, legality and settlement of the Cyprus conflict. The report notes that the military officers have a great influence over the decision-making process in the country; it speaks about the tortures, violation of rights of religious minorities, etc. We should note that if all these negative facts are not eliminated, the European Parliament will have the right to postpone the negotiations. According to an agreement concluded earlier, it is planned to start the negotiations in the end of this year.
