“168 Zham” speculates that the Kremlin has done everything in recent weeks to minimize Ankara’s discontent with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s planned participation in Friday’s official ceremonies in Yerevan to mark the centenary of the Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey. The paper argues that immediately after the official confirmation of Putin’s trip to Yerevan his press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, issued a statement saying that it will not harm Russian-Turkish relations.
“Zhoghovurd” emphasizes the importance of Friday’s debate in Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag, on a resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide. The German government has unexpectedly given the green light to its passage. The paper says that Germany’s World War One alliance with the Ottoman Empire proved “fateful” for the Armenian people. “If the German parliament adopts this resolution on April 24 that will be the second most severe blow to Turkey after Pope Francis’s statement,” it says. “It will also mean that in the world’s political centers the question of recognizing the Armenian genocide is already a closed matter.”
“Zhamanak” sees “huge attention” from around the world to the centenary of the genocide and events in Armenia that will commemorate it. “But there is no doubt that this attention will substantially decrease after April 24,” writes the paper. “And that will be an absolutely objective and natural phenomenon. And this decrease will bring up to the surface issues that are now shrouded by the publicity rumpus surrounding the genocide centennial. In particular, economic issues of vital significance to Armenia will come to the fore.”
(Tigran Avetisian)